The use of UV lighting seems to be the key to the breeding. For those unaware, Boelen’s are one of the hardest nuts to crack in captive breeding. Once they offered regulated levels of UV lighting along with heat, they started to see follicle development. Changes in behavior such as stretched and flopped rolling, and favoring the basking as opposed to the basking side were the first key indicators. With the first female, she was never introduced to a male during this time, but later they found allowed the mating and follicles grew. The choice behavior is interesting because so very often we ignore the need of UV for our snakes. The one key that Ari noted is "that the observations from this project showed that the species will choose high amounts of U.V exposure and will select separate light sources if given the opportunity. Interesting that the main amount of U.V basking is done during follicular development." It is however still under observation. Perhaps the use of UV is the key to unlocking the secret of breeding this species.

Matt Edgar spoke on Aiding Armenian Vipers. In 2004 the conservation division of the St Louis Zoo started up. The goal is to work thru partnerships to work with ecosystems, animals and institutions. He started out giving a bit of background on the natural history of this Middle Eastern species and its natural territory. As always human persecution is a major issue for these snakes as is a slight bit of poaching, although it is thought that most of the animals in the pet trade are from the Turkish population. Predation wise, he feels it is purely the birds of prey. With two different study sites in a very small country, a great diversity of the animals from the locales was very prominent. Some of the most common differences were color and body conditions. Because of the interest that his research group had in this species, the animals now have a protected habitat.