What is a tinker snake??

Question

i've been looking to buy a snake and earlier today i saw a tinker snake at one of the pet shops...does anyone know what family of snake it belongs to and just any general info?? i cant find anything about them

Answer 1

Trinket snake, most likely?  A lot of pet stores mislabel their animals.  The scientific name has recently changed to Coelognathus helenus, although you'll see them under Elaphe for a while yet.

They are one of the calmer species in the Coelognathus genus, so they might not be as difficult to handle and feed as a radiated rat snake.

Trinket snakes are often wild-caught.  Try to determine if the one you are looking at is captive bred or wild caught.  Wild specimens are more likely to be nippy, and they may be carrying parasites.  Captive bred animals may also carry parasites, but they are less likely to be sick and stressed.  

I would recommend that, if you do get a trinket snake, that you get it to a vet so it is treated for parasites right away.  This will prevent a LOT of problems down the road.

Additionally, you can talk to the folks in the Asian & European rat snake forum on kingsnake.com for more information; they are a pretty good group of people.

Answer 2

Ok I did some searching, I think you mean the trinket snake. you had mispelled the name and was hard to ook up. ony cause the one you gave, no such one.

but here are some links about it.

hope this helps.

Answer 3

Do you mean trinket snake? They are an Asian rat snake. I have a friend who breeds them, although I'm not real familiar with them. He says they can be a little nippy as babies but are a fairly easy snake to care for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaphe_hele...