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It was a scene right out of a Chinese pulp horror novel: Midnight. A muddy, overgrown path leading into the dense, pitch-dark woods. At the end of the path, a small Earth God shrine filled with candles and devotional objects. A looming, 70-foot Banyan tree overshadowing the little shrine; trunk-sized, thirty-foot limbs branching out almost horizontally at chest height. And right in the hub of those branches, an adult, three-foot Taiwan habu (Trimeresurus (Protobothrops) mucrosquamatus), lazing away, surveying his turf. Boy, did he ever look like he pWned the neighborhood! The pics are crappy, because I (a) had forgotten to bring my long lens, (b) didn't dare to get any closer, as there were dozens of large roots littering the ground, and I didn't want to stumble and fall face-first into Mr. Habu's fangs, and (c) still don't know exactly how to operate my new-fangled flash, a beast no less mystical to me than that snake. Maybe I should start by dialing down the flash output a bit....Anyway, Mr Habu ogled me for at least ten minutes, then decided he was fed up with all that flashing and shining, and retreated. With much calm and dignity, of course - habus are very suave and regal snakes, movement-wise....





Later, I met this Chinese Tree Toad, Hyla chinensis. As far as I understand it, it's technically a tree frog, but some of its skeletal features somewhat resemble those of toads, hence the name. I should have posted these pix under the PCOTW "WON'T SIT STILL!!". What a caffeinated little animal - I couldn't get a single good shot in! It also left my hand all itchy, the devious little *&%$#@!....







And a bonus pic for the arachnophiliacs: the fattest Huntsman Heteropoda venatoriaI've seen so far. They absolutely infest the trees and utility poles around here at night, but usually they stay below four inches toe-to-toe..

Cool stuff. That frog reminds me a little of our Pine Barrens Treefrog (Hyla andersonii). Do you have any pictures of the setting the snake was found in, with the shrine and everything? It really does sound like the kind of thing you'd see in a B movie!

yeah wow it looks a lot like andersonii.

Hey Twoton,

I've been enjoying your posts on Taiwan. I just returned from there, having visited Taipei, Kenting, and Taroko National Park. Have you tried herping in Kenting or Taroko yet? From speaking to the locals there, it appears that venomous snakes are very common during the summer months.

Here are some pics I took on the trip.

A DOR Kukri snake in front of the guest house I stayed at near Kenting.



The owner of the guest house said he regularly sees cobras and sometimes kraits emerge from this field behind the guest house.



At Kenting National Forest, one of our nature guides found this big-eye ratsnake that appeared to have been killed recently. It was close to 8 ft long.





There are a few caves (all very well visited by tourists) at Kenting where the Taiwan Habu can almost always be found, according to our guide. Here's a poor pic. of one.



And finally, I sneaked a few photos of Snake Alley in Taipei. Any ideas where these snakes come from? I saw only 3 snake shops while I was there, which is apparently a lot fewer than a few years ago.

Cobras awaiting death by vivisection.


King ratsnake on the left and what I thought was pytas mucosa on the right.

I didn't take any pics of the shrine etc, as I only had my 100 mm macro lens with me, which doesn't lend itself to grand landscape shots I'll return there soon, though.

jl8, I have been to Kenting and Taroko, but never herped it. Too touristy, and all the critters they have there can also be found in Yangmingshan National Park behind our house or in the fields in front of our house.

Venomous snakes (any snakes, really) are really common during the summer months, when the temps and humidity in the lowlands approach Bornean dimensions (in July and August, it's actually hotter than in Borneo, but just a little less damp)

That Big-eyed Ratsnake, Zaocys dhumnades, is very beautiful! I think they're the longest snakes in Taiwan. Here's me last year trying to guide an optically challenged (his eyes were all red, don't know why) and very pissy Big-eyed Ratsnake across a mountain road on which it basked. I knew what species it was, but too little about its behavior, so I didn't dare to just grab and move it by hand.



The snakes on Snake Alley come from farms as well as the wild. As I wrote in some other post, snake bile schnapps and all that pseudo-aphrodisiacal mumbo-jumbo isn't considered cool here anymore, so the snake vendors on Snake Alley are indeed a dying breed.