Venomous or non-venomous?

Ok, here's a good opportunity to compare venomous and non-venomous snakes. The image on the lefthand side depicts a juvenille Terciopelo (Bothrops asper), this is a deadly venomous viper and, as you can see, the head scales are uniformly small and the head itself is distinctly arrow-shaped. The image on the righthand side is of a False Terciopelo (Xenodon rabdocephalus) a non-venomous snake, and as you can see, the scales infront and just behind the eyes are larger than the other scales on this snake's head. The head is rounder (although, many non-venomous snakes inflate their cheeks to look more viper-like). My advice to you is, respect all snakes. Never harrass them to perform. It's better to assume that a snake is venomous. And remember, even non-venomous snakes can bite, and many of these bites cause allergic reaction or infection.

False Terciopelo - Xenodon rabdocephalus

This afternoon, whilst clearing up the workshop, Reinaldo found this False Terciopelo (Xenodon rabdocephalus) under black plastic bag and clearly having had a good meal recently. It would be easy to be fooled by this non-venomous mimic, and when it inflates its cheeks it looks distinctly viperish. But in the False Terciopelo, the head scales are variable in size (both large and small). A true, deadly venomous, Terciopelo has consistently small scales on its head (all the same size). Infact that's how to distinguish between venemous and non-venomous snakes. But the rule is, don't get close enough to any snake to inspect the size of its head scales! Reinaldo nearly stepped on an adult Terciopelo (ca. 2 meters!) on a forest trail this morning, at around 9am. So they seem to be out and about now, with the onset of the rainy season.