I haven't actually studied retics in the wild but I have seen a few. One I saw in the jungle was about 8' or so and climbed a tree exactly how described above. It was getting away from us and took to the high ground. It climbed with absolute ease and was quite fast. The others I have encountered in the night crossing roads from grassy areas and/or rice fields. I am sure they were hunting as do a lot of other snakes in those areas.
The photos included in this post were taken this year in Thailand in a location that I frequent. It was encountered on a trail by Thai rubber tree workers. They killed it for food as is the reality in areas where most of our exotic pets come from. This was a very large retic for what is typically encountered in the wild. In the stomach was a medium sized dog. There are many wild/feral dogs in this area of which most are a mix of Rhodesian Ridgeback (for those of you that know your dog breeds you can get a better idea as to the size).
This doesn't provide much information by way of hunting behavior or preferred resting location in relation to size but again, some will find it interesting. For those that are a bit open minded and can accept the fact that in some places snake can take the place of chicken or fish at the dinner table, retic actually tastes pretty good. I have reluctantly eaten snake in the past, mostly colubrids. This last trip I had retic for the first time in a stew....it had a good flavor. It was not the pictured animal but a smaller one about 10', they had the skin tacked to a board and were planning to sell it. The skin of the big one pictured in this post was purchased by the manager of a local hotel. We know her but I forgot to ask her about it.




DM Exotics

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