FieldHerpForum

Last night a friend took me on a road cruise in a nature preserve southeast of Taipei. This mountainous area is inhabited by just a few Aborigines from the Atayal tribe and only accessible for outsiders through checkpoints where you need to register and pay a visitor's fee (unless you arrive after midnight, in which case you can just zip past the snoring guards.... ) The region is famous for its montane fauna and flora, and a hotspot for North Taiwan herpers, so I had high hopes.

Alas, it's still pre-summer season and quite nippy (mid-sixties) up at 2000 ft, and our efforts resulted in nothing but the usual Taiwan Slug Snakes, an army of road toads, and a few mildly interesting frogs.

Almost nothing, that is...

After three hours, when we were just about to pack it in and try our luck at a lower elevation, I spotted this guy crossing the road and about to disappear in the roadside vegetation. My friend jumped out, I pulled over, and I hadn't even switched on the hazard lights when his frenzied cry came: "ALISHAN HABU!!!". Still half-believing that his senses had fallen victim to his fatigue, I grabbed the camera and my hat and ran over to check what he had on the hook. Lo and behold, somebody up there in Herper Heaven had obviously decided to have some mercy on our miserable souls and thrown us the Ultimate Bone: a young ~15 inch Ovophis (Trimeresurus) monticola makazayazaya aka Taiwan Mountain Pitviper aka Alishan (= Mt. Ali) Habu, the rarest of all Taiwan pitvipers and endemic to the island. As Taiwan herping jackpots go, this species is right up there with the Mandarin Rat Snake (Elaphe mandarina) and the Red Bamboo Rat Snake (Elaphe porphyracea vaillanti).

Fatigue vanished instantly, replaced by a massive adrenaline rush that still carried us high five hours later on the Autobahn back home. For a change, I didn't screw up under pressure: I threw my hat on the snake, which immediately snuggled up under it, giving me ample time to throw my dainty 280 pounds into prone position on the wet, leaf-strewn road, prepare camera and flash and draw a bead on the hat. We waited for about two minutes, then my friend removed the hat with his snake hook. As hoped, the snake had coiled up in a picturesque manner and even stayed in this position long enough for me to deal with this chance of a lifetime photo op in a proper manner (well, not entirely...I had forgotten to attach the flash diffuser, which required quite some post-production work in order to remove the harsh reflections from all those iridescent scales. Then again, maybe the diffuser wouldn't have brought out the iridescence nicely enough.)















You think this is an ordinary bush hat? Ohhh no. It's the Insta-HideyHole-Viper-Sooth-O-Matic luxury model in action!



Thanks again to everyone who contributed to my questions about controlling snakes for photoshoots when herping alone. The "toss hat on snake/let snake simmer down/remove hat with hook" trick is nothing short of amazing and works even when used repeatedly with the same beast!!!


After this thoroughly mind-ripping experience, the next serpent we met was barely able to elicit more than a weak "meh" from me. Even the fact that this juvenile Cat Snake (Boiga kraepelini) was a lifer for me paled in comparison to the Pitviper from Paradise, and so my heart wasn't in it when I took these perfunctory pix - I didn't even think of the hat trick for some nice coiling poses.

A contributing factor might be that this is a very annoying snake: its venom is strong enough to kill its prey and render bites to humans quite unpleasant, but too weak to warrant really careful, "no margin for errors" handling. (Disclaimer: no, I'm not the Danger Seeker type. In fact, I'll trade you six kraits for one of your Taiwan Beauty Snakes. But the rush when encountering really dangerous critters is always and undeniably there, and I think that's the case with every snake aficionado.)

To be fair, though, an adult B. kraepelini can grow up to an astonishing six feet and tangle up into very pretty knots....










One of the initially mentioned "mildly interesting frogs": Latouche's Frog, Rana latouchii, either smoking a cigarillo or having a roach stuck in his craw




And with this heart-warming, almost Hello Kitty-ish photo of (Slug) snake and (Bankoro) toad amicably sharing the road (Yes, it rhymes. No, it's not posed.), I'll close today's post and wish all y'all a very happy, productive and lucky weekend....

I can feel your excitement through your post here. Klauber wrote of the hat trick to, that's how I knew about it. I use the bottoms of pots with little ropes strung through the top. This allows you to pull them off with a hook a lot easier. I love the snakes over there, so I'm living vicariously through you.

Very cool!

Keep up with the interesting posts.

If you are serious about losing that 80 pounds to transform yourself into a lean mean herping machine, look up the Atkins diet.

The low carbs strategy is the easiest, healthiest and quickest way to go. PM me if you want some details.

Awesome snake! I'll keep my eye open for when you catch and post photos of those mandarin and bamboo rats!



If by healthiest you mean denying your body of usable energy so that it has to burn its fat stores then maybe. While it may sound like fun to eat nothing but fat and protein all day it is certainly not the healthiest way to lose weight (a well balanced meal plan and exercise would be the healthiest). And being as high cholesterol and high blood pressure are common in people that are over weight it is probably not a good idea to eat only bacon for breakfast and steak for dinner.

Wow, a couple of very interesting finds, Hans! Your narration is always entertaining as well. Your Boiga looks very much like ours but the Aussie species must have much weaker venom. I can't recall anyone complaining of pain after a Brown Tree Snake bite.

Taiwan looks like it is perpetually wet. Nearly all of you night shots show wet roads.


Regards,
David

Thanks, guys, and thanks also for the diet tips! My father was on the Atkins Diet for five years, and the lack of carbs made him the pissiest Dad on the planet. I inherited his hypoglycemic genes (don't EVER talk to me right before meals!!), so that's not for me, either. I used to lift weights (until I busted my abs and needed surgery), and there I learned that it hardly matters what you eat, as long as you eat less than you burn. This "Simple Physics" diet has helped me greatly since: I eat normally, but walk a lot. The tropical weather does the rest by killing most of my appetite and increasing my hankering for LOTS of chili peppers, which in turn stimulate the metabolism.

It rains indeed a lot over here; Taiwan is one of the world's rainiest countries. However, most rain falls in winter and spring; summer is relatively dry....except for the typhoons

Great post. Do you ever come across any interesting mammals on your night drives?

Congratulations that must have made for quite a night! That is a beautiful little viper.

cheers
Lat

Congratulations on your find. I know what it is like to go from complete boredom and exhaustion to exhilration. Sounds like you were in a really interesting area too.

Wow, nice find....congrats and here is to many more of them in your future!

Thanks again! No mammals apart from the odd flat rat, I'm afraid, although the area has quite a lot of civet cats one never sees unless they get stuck in a sewer. (Sika) Deer, (Taiwan Black) bears (Macaque) monkeys and wild hogs are only found at higher elevations (> 3000 ft) and even less populated areas.


I guess there's justice in the world after all. Finally a snake that's more dangerous than its Australian counterpart!