Scarce in the wild and in zoo collections, but not rare.
When I managed a large import/export reptiles dealership in the mid-nineties we recieved about 10-12 a year from S.A.

The native people who collected the snakes were very afraid of them and usually avoided them when encountered in the wild.
Only after hounding the exporter, we then secured 10-12 spread out over a years worth of imports.

At one time, I had 17 specimens in my private collection. I don't work with Lachesis anymore as I have focused my interest on Asian pitvipers, however Bushmasters are great to work with and their "reported" behavior of being savage etc. is overrated.

[ Hide Replies ]

• ON Press: Lethal snakes on display - W von Papineäu, Sat Dec 16 21:05:42 2006
• RE: ON Press: Lethal snakes on display - Greg Longhurst, Sun Dec 17 07:06:23 2006
• RE: ON Press: Lethal snakes on display - Matt Harris, Sun Dec 17 08:20:39 2006
• RE: ON Press: Lethal snakes on display - texasreptiles, Sun Dec 17 08:35:52 2006
• RE: ON Press: Lethal snakes on display - TJP, Sun Dec 17 10:03:43 2006
• Cdn Weights and Measures - W von Papineäu, Sun Dec 17 10:43:20 2006
• Weight correction - W von Papineäu, Mon Dec 18 11:42:49 2006
• RE: Weight correction - Greg Longhurst, Mon Dec 18 18:43:25 2006
• same as newts... lol n/p - bps516, Tue Dec 19 07:52:21 2006
• RE: ON Press: Lethal snakes on display - Plindsey, Sun Dec 17 17:39:30 2006
• How rare? - HappyHillbilly, Sun Dec 17 13:12:24 2006
• RE: How rare? - texasreptiles, Sun Dec 17 15:41:38 2006
• RE: How rare? - HappyHillbilly, Sun Dec 17 16:13:35 2006
• RE: How rare? - joeysgreen, Mon Dec 18 05:50:23 2006
• RE: How rare? - texasreptiles, Mon Dec 18 08:30:50 2006
• RE: How rare? - Senior, Fri Dec 22 09:16:33 2006
• RE: How rare? - HappyHillbilly, Fri Dec 22 14:09:35 2006