FieldHerpForum

I haven't posted much in the past weeks, mostly because I'm too exhausted from herping: my obsession to see and photograph a Chinese cobra drags me out of bed and onto the trails at the ass-crack of dawn every morning; if the alarm clock malfunctions, I hit the hills at dusk instead. Alas, so far no joy with the najas, but at least all this manic activity has me losing weight like there's no tomorrow, and I also get to see a lot of other stuff....much of which is slumbering in a folder marked for posting here

Among that stuff is the ubiquitous Green Tree (Bamboo) Viper, Trimeresurus steijnegeri, a poster boy for sheer tenacity. Like many other pitvipers, they're ambush hunters, and some of them will return to the same place night after night, assume exactly the same pose there, and stay like this until either a frog passes within striking distance, or until the bats come home - sometimes way into the late morning.

Although this species is supposed to be arboreal, I've yet to find one sitting on any sort of upwardly growing vegetation (save the baby I found on a sapling last January). I find them mostly in roadside ditches hunting for frogs, which make up almost their entire diet.

So, here's an assortment of GTVs I met over the past six weeks or so. Hope you like green

Great shots! Beautiful snake - they also have a natural camoflauge which allows them to blend in with the vegetation...keep em coming!

What beautiful snakes.

How do the locals react when they find one?

They certainly are beauties, Hans. Good luck with the Naja (and more corals, please).

Regards,
David

That's awesome!

Thanks, guys!

- How do the locals react? GTVs are nocturnal, so most people don't really get to see them at all. Envenomations happen mostly to farmers clearing brush and missing the sleeping snakes inside. But like everywhere else, most people are ignorant about snakes, so the diurnal Greater Green Snakes (Cyclophiops major) get to bear the brunt of the ophidiophobia, as they're also green (although the similarities clearly end there)

- "More corals, please!", he said innocently.....well, excuse me while I leap off the next tall cliff, cackling madly on the way down. In all seriousness: the fact that I found two McClellans Coral Snakes (Sinomicrurus macclellandii) this year (one of which I couldn't photograph) is as close to being touched by the Gods of Herping as it gets around here. I know people who've been tromping the trails for decades and have never laid eyes on even one coral.

Of course, nothing comes free in life, so I suppose my end of the Faustian deal is that I don't get to see any cobras, while everyone else does, especially right now in the hot summer months. Damn shame I'm not religious...if I were, I could at least go to church and complain to the Man Upstairs!

What a gorgeous little viper. What is the potency of their venom like? Are they like Botreichis?
I have a weakness for exotic green snakes as is evidenced by my keeping of Ahaetulla prasina. At least I know if they decided to bite me (which they don't) I won't die or become permanently mutilated. I like Morellia and Chondros too but they're so darn expensive.

I'm not sure how potent Botreichis' venom is, but T. stejnegeri is definitely much more dangerous than its famous cousin T. wagleri, that ubiquitous South East Asian tree viper. While not as dangerous as kraits or cobras, T. stejnegeri is definitely not a snake whose bite you can just choose to ignore in spite of the pain.

Another very pretty green tree snake from Taiwan is Elaphe frenata. Unfortunately, this species only lives in the South, and I don't