inexpensive pyrographic needle (50 W unit operated from a 110 volt 

 source) or a soldering pencil (powered by a 12 volt battery) to 

 burn/scar scales without drawing blood. 



Tattooing is more labor-intensive than scale clipping and 

 usually involves the transport of bulky equipment. Also a major 

 drawback is that during marking, there is a high risk of injury 

 and even death if the needle penetrates too deeply and pierces the 

 body cavity. Fitch (1987) points out two additional problems 

 limit img the widespread use of these techniques. First, in darkly 

 pigmented individuals and species of snakes, the numbers are 

 difficult to read accurately and second, especially in snakes 

 marked as juveniles the ink spreads and sometimes blurs the 

 numbers. 



Branding 



Hot (flame) branding (14). 



Clark (1971) described the use of a heat source, a Bunsen 

 burner in the laboratory or a small propane torch in the field, to 

 brand numbers on snakes by heating a branding wire of 2 0% 

 chromium/80% nickel (Chromel A) and applying it to the scales. 



Cold (freeze) branding (15). 



Lewke and Stroud (1974) employed a superchilled branding 

 instrument of copper wire to mark snakes. The technique was devised 

 by Farrel (1966) for use with livestock. Of the three coolants 

 tested (dry ice and 95% ethyl alcohol, Freon 12, and Freon 22), dry 

 ice and alcohol was the most successful. Chromatophores are 

 destroyed by quick-freezing the skin surface. The brand appears as 

 a white area (Fitch, 1987) . 



Although this method is a good field-marking technique, a 

 disadvantage is that the mark is not evident until after ecdysis 

 and there is a minimal size limit of the branding iron used. 

 Branding shares the same problems and disadvantages with tattooing. 

 It is labor-intensive, sometimes causes injuries and may be 

 difficult to read with heavily pigmented snakes. 



Recording integumentary and scale patterns 



Natural marks (16) . 



Calstrom and Edelstam (1946) employed the innovation of 

 recording a snake's color pattern because each has a unique 

 pattern. They photographed or sketched the fourth through eighth 



