About me

My name is Gidi van de Belt and I was born in Amsterdam (The Netherlands). I still live in Amsterdam. From my birth I was very interested in dinosaurs and that interest become more in time. Later on I became more interested in reptiles and amphibians. When I was 8 years old I got my first snakes. I started with some Thamnophis (fish eating), later on I bought two couples of Pantherophis guttatus. Then I decided to keep more special snakes, but not to expensive. We chose Elaphe dione which turned out to be interesting animals with a nice pattern. They have a really gentle disposition, are rather small and –this is something really special – their eggs already hatch after three to four weeks. Moreover they are relatively easy to keep. Nevertheless they are rare in captivity these days. This is rather strange, especially because a snake like Elaphe anomala (Elaphe schrenckii anomala, the Russian ratsnake) is kept quite often. The reason for this remains unclear. From 2001 on, we started with the composition of several breeding groups. It was clear to us that Elaphe dione was virtually unknown. Therefore, it was an interesting challenge.

I become very interested in this nice specie. I wanted to know more about this very interesting specie and was looking for a Elaphe dione specialist, then I meet Ivan Arinin. He was headkeeper of the Elaphe dione group in Tula Exotarium in Russia. I also met Sergei Ryabov, the director of Tula Exotarium. In february 2006 I have been there for two weeks for practice, I was a real prediktant! It was a very special time! Now I have a scientific cooperation with Tula exotarium. So I am allowed to buy and import special snakes from them. I bought many interesting Elaphe dione from them. Because I want to have some other special rat snakes as well I also bought some Coelognathus subradiatus. As far as I know , nobody in the west part of the European federartion have theserare specie at that time, now more people have them.