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Driving home from a friend's house late last night, the air was nice and balmy, so I took the long, but scenic route across the mountains. The reward for my decision was not only the grand night scenery of the entire Taipei City basin, but also this beautiful, three foot-plus Multibanded Krait (Bungarus multicinctus multicinctus), the first live specimen I've ever seen. Interestingly, MBK's are usually lowland dwellers; but I found this one at about 1700 feet (>500 meters) altitude.

Apologies for the crummy photos, but I had just a mere minute or so before the snake made a mad dash for the roadside ditch and the adjoining wall, where it miraculously found a hole to vamoose into (&^%$#@!). I was carrying a hook, but I've made a promise to my family and myself not to handle - by hand, hook or hat - any kraits or cobras. I'm slowly getting the hang of dealing with the mostly mellow local vipers that rely on their crypsis most of the time, but the two Big Game elapids here are quick, smart and nimble, whereas I'm old, fat, slow and clumsy, plus usually solo, so I consider any attempt at posing these guys an open invitation to a neurotoxic disaster. But that's okay: while these species are protected by law (as are almost all venomous serpents in Taiwan), they're not exactly rare, and the next opportunity will surely come again.

BTW, I've been told by various knowledgeable sources that the Umbrella Snake (Chinese for B. m. multicinctus) is a mild-mannered, even cowardly animal that will often coil up and even tuck its head into the coils when it encounters danger. Can anyone confirm this?













Buh-bye...


Gotta take a serious nap now - the adrenalin kick from this meeting prevented me from falling asleep until the toads stopped singing outside our house, and the kids got so excited about these photos that they browbeat me into taking them cruising tonight

haha thats awesome, congratulations

Great find, Hans! Congrads on the krait.

Regards,
David

nice animal.
but thats why I stay in new jersey, I would have been like, "hey look, someone let this california kingsnake loose. let me go catch him" haha

been keeping up with all your posts and you have really been finding some cool animals.
thanks for posting

Wow, Hans… Good find ….
Some commercial handlers in the SE Asia markets handle multicinctus and candidus as casually as a Rat Snake. There are anecdotes about this and other species of Bungarus, particularly B. fasciatus, having a different temperment in daylight than at night.


You did good, …
As with any kind of hot handling, you have to ask yourself, “ is what I get for this worth the risk?” (no one else can answer that for you.)

Thanks for sharing, Bill

Neat snake. I love your posts. Keep up the good work!

Those of you Socal herpers who are alwas griping about your AC being hijacked should release one or two of those on your boardlines. Problem solved. Permanently.

Cool post.
Handling hots, like any dangerous activity, is a slope greased with complacency. It's probably best to "stay on flat ground" for as long as you can.

Yes, Kraits (Bungarus sp.) are among the most difficult snakes to work with in terms of photographing and alot of times will hide their head in there coils. Make no mistake, should one land a bite and envenomate, you're in trouble. As I'm sure you know. Great find though! Keep it up.


Robbie Webb.

Great post as usual and most enjoyable to read.
Thanks for sharing. Be safe.
Casey

Thanks very much for the kudos and the kind thoughts, everyone!!


And you might not have been too far from the truth - kingsnakes, pythons and other exotic pet snakes are listed in the most authoritative ID book on WILD snakes in Taiwan, precisely because someone has let them loose in the woods here. Not in large numbers, mind you, but obviously enough to warrant an honorable mention.

The local equivalent of your "Cali kingsnake" in terms of misidentification is the harmless Formosa Wolf Snake (aka Plum Blossom Snake, Lycodon ruhstrati ruhstrati), under poorly lit conditions very similar to B. m. multicinctus. Since I'd never seen either in the wild before last Friday, I had always been a bit nervous about my ability to tell them apart, but now I can say that with the help of a good headlamp, there is NO mistaking the dangerous one. The krait has very sharply separated black and white bands and a triangular body cross-section (hence the name "Umbrella Snake"), while Lycodon has additional grey bands, and the borders between the rings are somewhat more muddled.


Jiminy Cricket, they do - check out this page! I googled the topic a little, and it seems B. multicinctus is one of the most highly prized dinner snakes in South East Asia, fetching as much as 13 bucks US per kilo.

The reasons for the handlers' behavior are probably complex, but my gut reaction would be "typical Asian fatalism". What hasn't happened yet, won't ever, and if it does, well, kismet. Telling people not to let their kids stick their heads out the sunroof while driving, because Dad slamming on the brakes to avoid hitting a dog running across the street might result in at least a partial decapitation, will invariably elicit the answer "oh, don't worry, that won't happen". Of course everything eventually does happen, but nobody learns from it, because "oh, don't worry, that won't happen to ME". Sigh....



Most exquisitely put, my dear Warren. This one goes straight into my quote collection and up onto my whiteboard!


I do indeed. I just finished reading Jamie James' Slowinksi biography "The Snake Charmer". While I was reading the meticulous, by-the-minute account of Joe's slow, horrible death, this blinking banner kept running through my brain: "The species that did this lives in the forest behind your house. You will eventually encounter it during one of your night safaris. Don't ever forget what this creature is capable of." Then I read the chapter again. And again. It struck home, to say the least. The close-up shots were taken with a fully extended 70-300mm zoom lens...the thought of breaking out the 105mm macro for a spot of supralabial scale counting didn't cross my mind once.

On a more positive note, blind fear is as use- and senseless as blind "courage"; each needs to be tempered with a dose of the other. The Multibanded Krait is a magnificent machine and very pretty animal - the photos really don't do it justice - and I'm looking forward to my next meeting with this species, which will hopefully last a little longer and result in better pictures.

Is there anything more memorable than your first encounter with a banded krait? Here's mine, captured on video (I was solo, simultaneously holding a flashlight in one hand and the camcorder in the other, not to mention terrified/excited to the core so apologies in advance for the poor quality of the video). But I think you can still get a sense of the beauty and gracefulness and magesty of this amazing creature as it moves through the environment that sometimes doesn't come through in still photos. I think Hans will agree with me that the experience is almost religious in nature: You see one of these things and you are overcome with a sense of awe, wonder, reverence, humility and privilege to have been allowed a brief trespass into its realm.



Just to show you how great the difference is between the two species, here's a videoof a Plum Blossom snake I came across the night before I came across that Banded Krait. As you can see: markedly different in coloration, movement and demeanor.

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

I can tell you that captives I have kept were cowardly, tail spiraling animals during day light hours, and completely different creatures at night...much like Lachesis are...so I would not think that finding it on the prowl at night it would be a "shy" retiring animal, but rather one quick to make sure it was left alone.


I hope to oneday see these magnificant elapids in the wild!!

Kudos again, and thanks for taking the time to share!

Welcome to FHF, Mr. Sack Good to see a fellow Taiwan-dweller here.


I can think of a few things, but this is a family forum But in all seriousness, it's an awe-inspiring experience probably only to be topped by meetings with the next powerful, yet elusive venomous serpent you've yet to see in the wild. Still, kraits always have this otherworldishness about them - the stark, black and white stripes that seem so incongruous with the world they live in - so devoid of color as well as of camouflage value. They also have a very un-pronounced, almost cute little head that belies their formidable powers. Pitvipers and cobras, they LOOK mean, but kraits are almost like lovable rubber toys.


Agreed. The worlds of humans and of snakes differ immensely, and the snake world is mostly inaccessible for us. So it's really a privilege to see snakes on the rare occasions they venture into the interface between their world and ours.


I keep hearing these stories about the Jekyll/Hyde character of the genus Bungarus, and while I'm sure it's not unfounded, at least B. multicinctus here in Taiwan is indeed a shy and retiring animal at night. Upon sensing an enemy, they'll first freeze and wait if the situation blows over, and if it doesn't, they'll slink away. Until last night I've never seen a krait bite even in reaction to tongs, and I still think that one was an exception because it had been on the tongs for too long and was starting to panic. Then again, I've only seen about three or four dozen so far (all this summer), so my experience might not suffice as empirical data.

May data here is with captives only Twoton, so any conjecture I add is weakly and vaguely applied to field discovered animals by assumption based on captives behaviours. Captive behaviour is definately not emperical alone and may not apply at all to wild, field observed animals.

I would love others with experience to chime in.

In any case, I thoroughly enjoy your posts and sharing a far away place that I would love to eventually visit.

Hi Mr Campbell,

here's some more fresh data on B. multicinctus behavior. Not much, but self-experienced.

Cheers

Hans