Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My wife and I just spent 7 days in Aruba on a for pleasure vacation. Not a herping vacation, but did see alot of herps anyway. We opted for an all day, cover the island, 4 wheel drive tour to see all the sites. At about 1:00 PM on the North/East end of the island (Quite remote) we stopped at the only restaurant around. It was on the edge of the Arikok park and refuge. We had stopped at the cave containing petroglyphs before stopping at the restaurant. At the entrance the park an employee had an Aruba Island Rattler in an Aquarium. They called it the White snake. I thought it might be leucistic except for the faint pattern. I was blown away. I asked him if there was a chance I might see one in the wild today. He told me no way as it was too hot. About 84 degrees. However it was intermitent rains, high humidity and sporadic cloud cover. I thought it felt perfect. We had 7, 4-wheelers in our caravan and we had all just sat down to eat. I finished early and asked the tour guide how much time I had. She said 5 minutes. The area behind the restaurant was very rocky with tons of debris. I walked about 30 feet to the first small board and lifted it. My heart jumped into my throat as I saw the most unique rattlesnake I had ever seen in my life. It looked transparent in the sun. It never rattled, but would not hold still. There were 4 natives with hoe's that said they wanted to kill it, as they kill all rattlesnakes. Apparently they kill quite a few. Between the time constraint and the looming decapitation I could not get the kind of pictures I wanted. But I think you will still appreciate the snake. I took pictures of other herps and I will post them later. By the way, I lifted the snake over a rock wall and watched him crawl into a massive boulder pile before I left. One of them aked me jokingly if I was the crocodile man. The snake is safe for now. I also gave them a lecture about killing these snakes. I hope it helped. Thanks...Ric Blair

Here is a head shot!

Another picture

The cave.

Thanks for sharing this Ric, I have NEVER seen one and only seen pics over the years. what an awesome experience! Thank you for sharing this. Wow. You lucky dog you....

Sincerely,

Fred Albury
Aztec Reptiles

What an incredible experience! So is there some kind of local population of extremely light colored unicolor in that area?

with a California zoo. He says they have 8 of them there and none look like that. Thanks...Ric
P.S. One person told me if I was that lucky that I should have looked for the Halloway girl while there. He said with that lind of luck I would probably would have found her, LOL. There was still alot of talk amonst the local's about her.

thanks ric-beautiful unicolor...great story and pics...sounds like you lucked into something pretty uncommon;i need to start traveling outside the u.s. myself,i just need a passport and also am a little worried it may be much more expensive than in the states.

Great photos, thanks for sharing. There is another animal almost exactly like this one pictured in Lamar & Campbell. It certainly appears to be a mutation of some kind as I believe that some babies have been produced from the subsequent breedings involving the one from the zoo (i wish i could remember, I think it was Fort Worth that had the one pictured in Venomous Snakes of Lain America) I think it is axanthic, the "blue" is very similar to the adamanteus axanthic I saw years ago, it also had pinkish highlights. Beautiful snakes, too bad they are in the shape they are regarding protection, it's a perfect example of protecting the animal from keepers that could produce them yet leaving the native peoples to kill them indiscriminately
and build over thier habitat.

Horridus@aol.com

Thanks for the pic. I think it was a great picture too by the way. man, what a rush that must have been to lift that guy,aweome.
Jeff Teel