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.

Look again!

When Reinaldo went back to photograph the Terciopelo that I had nearly stepped on, he realized that it's male partner was just a few feet off (above center of image - would you have spotted this?). We hadn't seen it the first time. Our neighbors say that October and November is mating season and that's why these snakes come onto the forest trails . Maybe there is truth in this. They also say that you must kill Mussurana, or Zopilota (Clelia clelia) snakes as these mate with Terciopelo and make more Terciopelos, which is clearly not true! Perhaps this local falacy came about when someone witnessed a Mussarana - a blue-black, non-venomous snake, of up to ca. 3 meters - eating a Terciopelo, which the species is famed for doing. For a great photo and account of this surprising behaviour, check out Jack Ewing's page at: http://www.travelblogs.com/articles/a-terciopelos-nightmare/

Femme fatal

This morning, a juvenille Fer-de-Lance viper, or Terciopelo, (Bothrops asper) struck at me on one of the forest trails. Luckily, it being only 12" long, and me being about a meter away, it missed! Last November, we were cleaning up the trails and I narrowly missed standing on this deadly beauty, which was coiled right on the edge of the trail. A pretty impressive photo taken by Reinaldo and a sobering reminder of why it is forbidden to enter the LCO forest trails in sandals or sneakers!