On communal egg-laying of the tiger keelback (Rhabdophis tigrinus) (Reptilia, Colubridae) in the Far East of Russia

Abstract

The paper presents the case of discovery of 60 eggs of the tiger keelback (Rhabdophis tigrinus) in the vicinity of the Dunay settlement (Primorsky Krai, Russian Federation) under a wooden railway sleeper on July 27, 2022. The authors suggest that it was a collective clutch of eggs from three females. Incubation in artificial conditions, from the discovery of this collective clutch to the release of juveniles from the eggs, lasted 17–20 days. Given the synchronicity of the hatching of young snakes, it is assumed that the eggs were laid by different females almost simultaneously. The youth emerging from the eggs had a mass of 1.60–4.78 g, a body length of 152.4–211.3 mm and a tail of 28.4–48.1 mm.