FieldHerpForum

The Bamboo Viper (Trimeresurus/Viridovipera stejnegeri stejnegeri) is Taiwan's most common venomous snake, but thanks to its brilliant color always a pleasure to meet. It grows up to three feet, is primarily nocturnal and most commonly found in lowland trees and bamboo groves. We spotted this one next to a roadside ditch it was about to cross in order to get to the Brown Tree Frog (Buergeria robusta) perching on the rock wall on the far side of the ditch. When we approached it, it slunk into the water, then crawled up the other side and stopped about four feet from the frog (at one o'clock in the last pic). We waited twenty minutes for the viper to make short work of the anuran, but no joy...in the end, the snake had more patience

They sure are pretty snakes.

Wow! That snake is bright!

Angry looking Opheodrys you got there

Seriously though - how do you go about finding snakes in the forests when not road cruising? Cover lots of ground and find anything on or at the trail edge, or methodically search any likely looking areas?

Thanks, really enjoy seeing your posts on here!

Thanks, guys! I find most snakes during road cruises, this one, too. I also do almost-daily/nightly hikes through the woods during which I occasionally find snakes, but the hikes are mostly to get in shape - road cruising still yields the best results.

I would love to find something so brilliant as that! Like the others, I have enjoyed your posts from Taiwan ... sneaking in a few pics of the endemics birds would also be appreciated.


Regards,
David

Endemic birds......okay, will remember! I keep seeing more and more Formosan Blue Magpies, mostly in little groups. Very beautiful birds with very grating voices....

ADDENDUM to the issue on where to find snakes here: the best way, even better than road cruising, is to patrol the ditches. As in most of Asia, 90% of the ubiquitous, narrow roadside ditches lining most of the Taiwanese country roads (due to rainy climate) are not covered, and their bottoms are usually covered in leaf litter, providing a false sense of safety for many small animals. So you take a long stick/snake hook and walk along the ditch, stirring up the leaves as you walk. (The macho version is to walk inside the ditches, kicking up the leaves with your boots.) Here's some ditches from the local "Snake Road".

Mate that is a very very pretty snake. I'd love to find vipers one day, especially something as spectacular as that.

Thanks,

Brendan.

....said the man who lives in a place crawling with some of the world's most awe-inspiring serpents

Are there any vipers in Oz? I keep reading about elapids, but rarely see any mention of viperids.

Thanks again!

Hans

Thanks for that insight Twoton - tips like that should be useful in around two months' time

And there are no vipers in Australia, just the death adder, which while an elapid, seems to have convergently evolved to fill that ecological niche of a stout ambush predator. Sort of the opposite of the African night adder!

Thanks, Iswa! What tip did I provide? (Sorry, still in pre-coffee mode here...) Sad about the lack of vipers in Australia....but who needs them when you have access to all this:

Australia is the only continent where venomous snakes outnumber their non-venomous cousins. Australian snakes belong to seven families. Of these, the most venomous species, including the Fierce Snake, Eastern Brown Snake, Taipan and Eastern Tiger Snake are from the family Elapidae. Of the 200 species of elapid, 86 are found only in Australia. Thirty-three sea snakes from family Hydrophiidae inhabit Australia's northern waters; many are extremely venomous. Two species of sea snake from the Acrochordidae also occur in Australian waters. Australia has only 11 species from the world's most significant snake family Colubridae; none are endemic, and they are considered to be relatively recent arrivals from Asia. There are 15 python species and 31 species of insectivorous blind snake. (Wikipedia)

Then again, the bamboo vipers are always greener on the other side of the fence, I guess

I just realized that this means that at a certain time in history, all snakes in AUS were venomous. Boggles the mind.

Hahaha but still no vipers here! I think wikipedia needs an update because Australia should look even better to herpo's now with a couple of new discoveries including a new taipan (Oxyuranus temporalis) a couple of years ago along with some species reclassification, we now have around 97 recorded elapids
There might be a lot of nice snakes here but I'm greedy and still jealous of that viper.



Brendan.

Same here, so we've even I guess I'll try to find consolation in the fact that on our little island here, I only have to drive ten minutes to see all manner of snakes (lunch break herping, I like to call it)....something not really possible in a place as huge as Terra Australis.

haha lunch break herping is pretty damn great but I enjoy going to work and expecting to see a few snakes while working
The bird department made it so easy, putting bait out and all

OK. You win


What do you mean?

The bird department had aviaries around the zoo. Brown tree snakes and scrub pythons would always be hanging around them or inside them. We found that brown tree snakes have a huge preference for metallic starlings

Now I've heard everything!!

lol obviously it was unintentional. Bird Keepers didn't appreciate finding their birds inside snakes but apparently there's not much you can do to stop it. Well they could always use smaller mesh but that costs money. Then again so do birds. One of many many reason why working in a zoo was so damn frustrating.