HM: How did you get into the hobby?
MM: As a child, my family was very supportive of my interests in reptiles and amphibians, especially my grandmother. We would frequently visit The Chicago Reptile House (CRH) in Orland Park, IL, to look at the different species that they would have on display and for sale. At that point in time, the hobby was still gaining momentum and growing fast. In the early ’90s, several countries, including Madagascar, were still regularly exporting new species, and going to the shop was better than going to the zoo! New species were becoming available, and many did not have any available guidance on husbandry, including the now very common Crested Gecko (Correlophus ciliatus). This prompted my interest in reading of which my grandmother also encouraged, and when I had raised enough money by doing chores to purchase a new critter, she would readily purchase the book about their natural history. Reading publications on reptiles and amphibians also prompted another hobby… collecting antique and current publications relating to herpetoculture and herpetology.
During the early 90’s, we did not have the internet to readily google and search websites and classifieds; rather, many hobbyists had to rely on publications and field guides related to the species, which often were very generic. Philippe de Vosjoli’s publications were really pushing the limits on the care and husbandry of many species, and those “white” book publications were always a staple purchase during the many visits to The Chicago Reptile House. The support of family, friends, and the employees of CRH provided me with the foundation to grow my passion for the care and reproduction of many reptiles and amphibians over the years.
HM: You specialize in old world rat snakes. What made you gravitate to that group of snakes?
MM: What prompted me to gravitate towards old world rat snakes was their small commercial offering—having kept many species over the years and attended many reptile expositions in the U.S. I only observed a small offering of the species. Having read many articles and publications on their care and husbandry, I thought they would be the perfect captive specimen as a result of their small to medium size, room temperature gradient, and striking natural beauty. The first of the old world rat snakes ventures were the Oreocrytophis porphyracea coxi. My interest in this species and others started back in the ’90s when captive born and bred specimens were just starting to make their appearance in the U.S. in part to the captive husbandry success of Klaus-Dieter Schulz and importation by Bushmaster Reptiles Inc. This also coincided with Klaus’ publication “A monograph of the colubrid snakes of the genus Elaphe, Fitzinger,” which is considered by many the bible for rat snake enthusiasts. Upon purchase and receipt of the publication, my eye gleamed at the natural and wild beauty of many of these species. This coincided with the first of the Oreocryptophis offered in the U.S. the O.p.coxi! At their pinnacle offering in the hobby, they were solely offered in a reverse trio with a price tag of $3500 for captive-born hatchlings! Their natural bright orange/red and dorsal metallic black stripes were extremely eye-catching, and many breeders, including Pro Exotics, saw the potential for herpetoculture in these rat snakes. Following their first offering, Robyn Markland and the staff of Pro Exotics Reptiles were publishing their successes with the species and sharing their experiences in popular magazines such as Reptiles Magazine.
Interestingly enough, in conversations with Klaus, all of the commercially offered coxi came from 5 individual specimens. As time proceeded, more Asian rat snakes started to trickle into the hobby, and those that invested in these species also came to find the struggles with the WC specimens. Most, if not all, of these specimens, were heavily parasitized, dehydrated, emaciated, and stressed beyond recovery. In conversations with Karl Krumke, a former Asian rat snake breeder, he invested thousands of dollars in having one pair of O.p.vaillanti survive long enough to reproduce in captivity. As with many field-collected specimens, there is an aspect of gambling, and many keepers purchased all of the available specimens hoping for one pair to reproduce in captivity. Those that made those initial investments seeded the foundation in many of the commercially available Asian rat snakes, including O.p.coxi. Stan Grumbeck and I have personally experienced gambling with field-collected specimens, as we’ve partnered on many of the new and uncommon species of colubrids and rat snakes. However, we share a similar interest in all of these species, and one of my personal goals, before I pass away, is to produce each and every species of Asian rat snakes at least once.
HM: You have some pretty obscure species in your collection, Red striped snakes (Bothrophalmus lineatus) being one of the least commonly known species. How did you find them, and what were your challenges establishing them?
MM: The Red-Black Striped snakes, Bothrophalmus lineatus, had been an interest of mine for many years before they became publicly available. I had come across their genus when reviewing field guides of Africa and researching African File Snakes. Their neonate coloration was extremely different from anything else available in the hobby. The striking bone white colored head that slowly changed into an entirely orange/red snake with black dorsal stripes resembling O.p.coxi was something that I thought would be very interesting to try and establish in the hobby. They had been imported a few times, and I personally passed at the initial offering, as I did not have space to properly quarantine the specimens. The people that purchased those animals also seemed to have poor success with the species, which, as indicated earlier, is gambling when it comes to field-collected specimens and is a numbers game to try and establish the species. When they became available again, I jumped on the species and purchased as many specimens as fiscally feasible and brought them straight to my veterinarian, who came to find out a few very interesting things.
As with any field-collected specimen, they should be checked by a qualified veterinarian and treated appropriately to avoid parasitism in an established collection. Needless to say of this purchased group, a number of the specimens quickly perished due to a high parasite load both in both their respiratory and digestive systems. The specimens that were treated and reevaluated took a bit of time to establish in captivity and became a bit of a learning curve when trying to uncover the secrets of the species. In combination with the cost of the individual specimens, the veterinary bills were substantial to properly evaluate and treat the individuals. However, several years later and we have hatched out several clutches of this species and have been able to share a few of the progeny with experienced hobbyists and friends. In conversation with those keepers, the captive specimens are night and day to the field-collected individuals and do make great captive animals. We’re excited to bring this species to herpetoculture, but there is still a lot more work to be done to make it a commercially available species. I’m always up for a challenge, though!
HM: Another species you are known for are your Vietnamese mandarin rat snakes. What makes that locale different from the usual mandarins we see in the hobby, and what made you want to focus on that locality?
MM: What prompted my focus on the Hong Valley sapa Lao Cai, Vietnam specimens was their impressive size and coloration in comparison to the Chinese localities. Today, for example, I have several specimens that are over 6’ in length! Further, I saw potential in selectively breeding this species for distinctive yellow coloration and creating some of the best Mandarin Rat Snakes available. I am still dabbling in several of the mandarin morphs, including Xanthic, Axanthic, and Aberrant patterns, and crossing several of these to further the species in herpetoculture.
The Vietnamese Mandarin Rat Snakes, in my opinion, are more than a locality of Mandarins; I believe that they may, in fact, be a subspecies of E. mandarinus. I’ve been working with Kevin Messenger on a publication concerning Asian Rat Snakes, and based on their geographic range, it would be interesting for someone to study and determine if there is, in fact, subspecies status amongst the localities. Several localities (e.g., Sichuan, Zhejiang, Hunan, and Vietnam) have been reproduced in herpetoculture, and they do have different phenotypes/morphology. There is still much more to be added to the herpetoculture of E. mandarinus, and I believe in the next few years, we might start to see other morphs, including amelanistic and patterned morphs being offered.
HM: We all have people we look up to in the hobby. Who was someone that you looked up to or taught you a lot about keeping?
MM: This is definitely one of the most challenging questions to answer, as, over the years, I’ve been blessed to meet many people across this hobby. Each of these people played a large role in contributing to my knowledge and helped me to understand the ethics and responsibility of breeding and to keep reptiles in captivity. One person that I was blessed to meet in my life is Rob Carmichael of the Wildlife Discovery Center in 2010. At this point in my life, I was put with the task of building a committee to serve as my advisory board for my research project concerning the habitat selection of Thamnophis. Rob did not hesitate to agree and provided a pivotal understanding in both researching species at a scientific level and husbandry.
Volunteering time at the center allowed me to interact with many children and adults visiting the center, and being able to see a child’s face the first time they interact with a reptile or amphibian is priceless! Rob not only volunteered his time for my graduate degree but also provided education for best practices with handling venomous species. This was foundational training for my Ph.D. program at UMass, where I studied under Bruce Young and would be exposed to a number of venomous species and would be required to handle and milk venomous species.
During graduate school is also when I was exposed to Old World Rat Snakes and contacted two people that have made many strides in the industry, Karl Krumke, and Stan Grumbeck. Karl was in the process of moving and retiring both from the hobby and his professional career and offered me a number of his breeders. Karl sought the best for his specimens and helped me to build my initial collection of Old World species, and gave me a head start in the keeping and breeding of several species, including 100 Flower Rat Snakes (Othriophis moellendorffi). It was at the same time of conversation with Karl that I was introduced to Stan Grumbeck, who would become a role model in the hobby. Stan and I shared a similar interest in Old World Rat Snakes, and we began having weekly conversations sharing interests and breeding notes.
It was during these conversations that Kamuran of Bushmaster Reptiles imported a group of David’s Rat Snakes and Stan, and I decided to split the project. This initial project would become the beginning of a long term relationship in the hobby, as while we had ups and downs with the project, there was never any negative conversation. We both knew the risks with a new species, and from that project, we opened up our collections to each other and started a tradition of sending each other a yearly box of new species. We felt that should something ever happen to one another’s collections, we would have a backup, as there is no guarantee with life. Dick Bartlett said it best, “When you work with life… You work with death.” Over the years, Stan and I have become very close friends, and while we are several states away, we keep in contact weekly, and it has made it very fun to share notes and explore new species in the hobby with someone as experienced as Stan.
HM: Besides old world rat snakes, what else do you work with?
MM: Jeez… I can’t give you all the secrets! Joking, we have a few projects that are behind closed doors, which may be longer-term projects for the hobby. Some are also new species to the hobby, and time will tell how adequate they are for the hobby. However, within the collection, I keep species that are well… Interesting! When I start researching species, I look at what is uncommon in the hobby, and by uncommon, I am referring to being uncommonly produced in captivity.
Over the past few years, I’ve picked up a few commonly imported species, including the African Forest File Snakes, which are heavily imported, but not commonly bred in captivity. This has prompted me to wonder why no one is working with them and creates a challenge that I often accept and try to figure out these species in captivity. Within the past five years, I’ve expanded my collection to working with the following species: Mehelya capensis and crossi, Bothrochilus boa and albertisii, Loxocemus bicolor, Dinodon rufozonatum, Pantherophis obsoletus, Pantherophis obsoleta lindheimeri, Calabaria reinhardtii, and Pantherophis guttatus.
HM: Where did you come up with Sarpamitra for your business name, and what does it mean?
MM: Sarpamitra has a very interesting beginning, and to be frank, I wouldn’t have come across the terminology, or the name had it not been socializing with some fellow graduate students from India. While attending graduate school at the University of Massachusetts, I was very fortunate to meet a gentleman by the name of Parag, who was in several of my courses. He gained an interest in my research with Bruce Young, Ph.D., and was fascinated with snakes.
One evening I invited him over to view my collection and have some pizza and beer, a Friday night staple in graduate school. It was then when I pulled out several species, including O. p. coxi, that he stated, “You’re like a Sarpamitra.” I looked at him with a blank face trying to understand the context of the term. To my shock and dismay, he was comparing me to a sarpamitra from his village, which is a “friend of a snake” and protects and safeguards snake species. They also demonstrate to villagers how to deal with various aspects of snake bites, including precaution and first aid care. They also provide education to villagers on classifying snakes as either venomous and non-venomous. There are a number of YouTube videos on this subject matter that I would recommend watching, as it’s very interesting to watch the passion of these educators.
HM: With having so many uncommon species, how did you find information on those species that don’t have a lot of information out there on them?
MM: I get asked this question a lot more frequently than I have in the past. I think a lot of the questioning has to do with the growth of the hobby and many new keepers coming to the scene. Fortunately, a lot of the information is at the tips of our fingers now. In the past, I had to rely on my library of reptile and amphibian books and magazine articles. However, in the past 20 years, the internet has been a great research tool. Learning about the natural history of different species prompts many questions specific to their native habitat, which is interesting to me as the more locality information available on a species, the better research can be conducted. I use locality information to search websites like weather.com or plug it into the weather app on my phone to inquire about seasonal patterns (e.g., rain seasons). This information can provide a lot of information on the care and captive reproduction of field-collected specimens but often provides cues as to why animals go off of feed during certain times of the year.
YouTube has also prompted a lot of interest in the past few years as keepers have started to provide care videos on species, which is something we are working on doing with R & B Reptiles to put proper care information out there for viewers. However, all of this is just the starting point in research. A lot of information about animals is found or sought by watching species in captive conditions. Watching and keeping records of where animals are found can provide insight into the proper temperature, humidity, and feeding patterns. Observing animals in captivity is often something we overlook and rely upon a care sheet. Care sheets are something I discourage, and when people ask me for information of the sort, I will typically provide links to books and scientific papers. Too often, we stick to these key points and forget that there is so much more to be researched, and while a care sheet might be the minimal care requirements to keep an animal alive, it’s not the whole story of an animal’s natural history.
HM: Why should the hobby put more focus on the obscure species?
MM: 2020 was an interesting year, and I think COVID-19 as a whole has shown what can happen with the import/export of animals. In 2020 import/export permits were approved in lower numbers, which was a direct result of offices being closed and airlines decreased the number of flights to certain areas of the world. The main point is that we should treat all of these species as if it were the last time we would be able to acquire them. The world has and is changing very rapidly. The topography of countries that regularly export is changing, bringing challenges to the home range of many species. Laws concerning the legality of certain species is providing more hurdles for agencies and groups that defend our rights as keepers. However, there is never a true timeline for when species will stop being exported.
In this hobby, many of us, including myself, have neglected to think about what if (insert species here) is no longer available to acquire? Will it still be available for those of us that wish to work with them in the future? Will that species be lost to the hobby forever? Many species, especially the obscure and commonly imported species, have been treated as expendable animals. I’ll use Prehensile Tailed Skinks as an example here as they were one of the first species I bred in captivity as a child. In the 90’s they were cheap… $20-25 ea. and were very common in a number of pet stores… and then suddenly Madagascar closed, and they were nowhere to be found. In the 90’s I was breeding them as a colony of animals and couldn’t sell them for more than $5 ea. as CB animals until the importation stopped. Now it’s not uncommon to see them available for several hundred dollars and are imported in much lower numbers now. Everyone assumed they would always be available, and that’s something we should be ready to accept in the future. Field collected animals have their challenges, but can be very rewarding to the keeper that is dedicated to a certain species or genus.
HM: Last question, what advice do you have for anyone that is just getting started in the hobby/breeding scene?
MM: Follow your heart! When people contact me inquiring about species, I often come to find that the long term goal is to reproduce the species and sell them. It’s typically 50/50 why those customers want to produce the species in captivity, and about half of them want to make money on the species. I typically have to remind many people that if you don’t genuinely have an interest in the species, then it is not a species that should be pursued. You can make a market out of the animals that you keep and breed, but if you do not share the same level of interest in the animals, then you should really not keep or try to produce the species in captivity.
