The big one!

The bushmaster (Lachesis muta) is the largest pitviper in the New World tropics and confined to tropical lowland wet forest, ranging from southern Central America to northern South America. It is a pale fawn color with some fairly distinctive black triangular markings. Check out the webpages of Digimorph at UT Austin (under the all too aptly named "Deep Scaly Project") for some sobering craneal models and more information relating to this species.

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!