These stunningly beautiful snakes are baby THAI BAMBOO RAT SNAKES (Oreocryptophis porphyraceus coxi) which hatched in 2025 at a breeder's home in Cornwall on April 13th (female) and April 21st (male).
This is the male, who is named Nemo due to his vivid orange, white and black colouration. On arrival he weighed just over 13g, which makes him the lightest snake I have owned in more than a decade!!
In the wild this species lives in the cool hillside rainforests of northwestern Thailand, often found at altitudes in excess of 2000ft, where they spend a lot of their time hiding in leaf litter or under logs. Like all of my snakes their main diet is rodents, but at this size they are only able to manage the smallest baby mice. I keep frozen rodents of all sizes in a special freezer in my home, from baby mice to huge rats for the larger pythons. Some of the rats in my freezer weigh 20 times more than this tiny snake!
This is the female, whom I have decided to name Ember. Despite being mostly very similar the two of them are very easy to tell apart, as Ember has a distinctive black collar just behind her head:
I am very much looking forward to watching Nemo and Ember grow in the months ahead. They won't change colour or pattern like some of my other snakes but, when you're this beautiful to begin with, that is not a problem!