NATURAL HISTORY
This species is one that I am most proud of that I was able to put on the map and get into the hobby. The Ptyas carinata is known as the Greater Keeled Rat snake or in Indonesia it is called “King Korros”. It is truly one of the giants of the colubrid world with males of this species getting upwards of 10’ with a muscular build and sleek shape. Females are usually a bit smaller averaging about 7’-7.5’. These visual hunters will eat anything they can overpower and I have tried just about every prey item you can think of and good amount of my animals would eat them. These will eat other snakes, including each other, so really just about everything is on the menu. My very first trip to SE Asia in 2003 was when I saw my very first one. This was at the Red Cross Snake Farm in Bangkok and while I had no idea what I was looking at at the time, I was able to get the scientific name from a staff member and that is what set the ball in motion. Upon my return from that trip I started messaging every importer I could think of and the universal reply that I received was that they had never heard of it. I knew this one was going to be a challenge but I was relentless and since that same trip in 2003 was the first of many that would eventually get me into the importing business, Ptyas carinata was at the top of my list. These snakes occur in all of SE Asia from Myanmar in the north, across all of the east west countries in the main body of SE Asia and south to Indonesia. The first Ptyas I was able to import were korros and mucosa, both smaller species in the same genus and also virtually unknown in the hobby in 2007, and those became my training wheels for what was to come later. Once my importing adventure moved from Thailand to Malaysia, I had some bitter sweet success in finding carinata at a skinner’s facility. While there were living specimens there, they were in very poor condition and I quickly realized that it would be an unrealistic place to source animals. I later managed to add Indonesia to my list of countries I was doing business in and my persistance finally paid off in 2012 with the very first living, breathing carinata arriving stateside. The national export quota for this species in Indonesia that year was 450 specimens and a search of the export database going back the maximum of 5 years to 2007 revealed that not one had been exported during that time and that these were the first. In 2016 the quota was reduced to 27 and as of last year the quota was at 95 for 2021….although those numbers are not being hit. Later I sourced Ptyas carinata from Malaysia and I was finding that the prettier, banded animals or “pearl” as they call them in Indonesia, comprises the majority of Malaysian animals so they became my focus.
ACCLIMATION
Upon arrival, I would remove the large snakes from their snake bags and would manually secure their head and give them a quick “once over”. It was at this time I would remove ticks(if there were any) and quickly note any scars or injuries that might need attention. I wanted to keep stress to a minimum with these high-energy snakes because I had learned that too much interaction in the early stages was detrimental to their health. I house them all solitarily with a hide box, large water bowl and some cage décor to provide more security. In the beginning I would leave the snakes almost completely alone except for a quick glance every couple of days. After the first week of no interaction I would start feeding trials. The biggest failure with these in the hobby is animals being freshly imported and shipped 2-3 times before even hitting a cage with access to water. Being tailed in the aisle of a busy reptile expo as we have seen on facebook also are steps backward in any acclimation process so I don’t endorse that either.
With all newly arrived P. carinata, I would first try live 10-14 day old rats for first meals. This was a non-threatening food item that would provide the stimulus of movement and also not risk any damage to the snake if it did not consume it right away. This was rarely successful but it was worth a try because it did sometimes work. For those that refused I would then try an adult mouse for the change of scent but this would only be attempted for a very short time before removed, this rarely worked. The next step would be to try thawed chicks and quail. I have noticed that of those animals that did take birds, there was no preference between the two. If none of is was successful I will try thawed frog legs obtained from the local Asian food market. Even though these were skinned and nicely cleaned for human consumption, just getting the snakes to eat was good enough for me. My experience has proven that the frozen/thawed frog legs were the most readily consumed. I would also use the water in the package of frog legs for scenting rat pups which did work about half of the time. I also used raw egg to dip rat pups in which also was successful sometimes. There are always some hold-outs for which none of this works. For those I offer Duttaphrynus melanostictus, the naturally occurring toad in the range they come from. These were almost always readily eaten. Some of the truly stubborn individuals were also partial to snakes. This became my outlet for ridding myself of imperfect or still-born hatchling ball pythons or other snakes that were hatched or born within my collection…they were eaten without hesitation. Seeing the voracity for which other snakes were consumed gave me some concern for future pairing and breeding. Once established and feeding, my long-term captives will eat anything off the end of hemostats. At this point I offer chicken hearts, gizzards, eggs and really just about anything you could think of that they would be able to find in the wild. I feed them twice per week with as varied a diet as I can possibly provide.
Determining gender was quite different. On average, most male snakes of different species will penetrate between 9-15 subcaudals and females usually 3-8 subcaudals. Our females were probing at 9-10 subcaudals and males 15-20+. A trained eye is able to visually sex larger animals but baby to medium ones can sometimes be unreliable. Giant animals so far have always been male.
BREEDING
I bred my first carinata in 2016 and I found that they were not difficult to breed with a good breeder male and having females that were conditioned and ready. The physical pairing can be tricky because feeding response is extreme and can result in injury or death. I often observed courtship and even copulation. Palpating for follicles was the only method I used and I only did my pairings when follicles were present and I simultaneously increased food for the females around that event. I continued introducing males in between feedings until I could tell it was a done deal. Clutches averaged 7-12 eggs but getting eggs to hatch proved difficult. I did manage to hatch viable babies on two occasions. I started getting more carinata from Malaysia and few to none from Indonesia but what I was seeing in visual appearance was quite impressive and it got me to focus all of my attention on Malaysia locality animals and I ended up selling my Indonesian snakes. At this time all of our Ptyas carinata reside in our breeding facility in Kuala Lumpur and they are thriving.
ESTABLISHING BABIES
The very few babies that I managed to hatch had a green wash to them and this would soon fade away with each shed. They were just as alert and in tune with their environment as the adults and preferred living, moving prey items. I was having luck with live pinkies, live geckos, and sometimes different food items from tweezers and essentially mimicking a similar diet to the adults.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This is another species that I created a market for with a huge demand and even now I am still getting 2-3 messages per week. I see this market demand has now spread across the globe and even hobbyists in Indonesia and Malaysia are posting this species on social media. While I have seen some pics of babies posted by Indonesia keepers, I haven’t seen any breeding or copulation images to back it up so I suspect gravid wild-caught animals. If I didn’t put in the work, I suspect this would still be an animal only for the skin trade but my feelings are mixed because this still puts additional pressure on this species. I am also fearful that the average hobbyist may not be able to be successful with these giant colubrids and after so much work put into this project, I hope I never see pictures of any with fidget spinners on their heads or crawling in a bowl of macaroni on IG.