I was down in the southern Mexican state of Campeche last week doing some herping and birding and came across a couple of melanurus I thought some of you might like to see.
The first one was crossing a quiet road through some deciduous forest around 8 in the morning.
Here's the road and habitat -
and here's the snake. It was about 4 feet, really thin and had a lot of ticks. It is the end of the dry season right now and things are tough for all critters.
The other melanurus sighting was more amazing. We were sitting at the edge of this shallow pond, watching to see what birds came in to drink. We were sitting on the little plank/bench you can see at the edge of the pond.
The person I was with was looking at something in her binoculars and she said, "hey, is this a snake?". Then she said, "Oh, never mind". I assumed she had resolved the issue so I didn't look.
A few minutes later, I saw a motion among the shrubby bushes in the middle of the pond. I looked with my binoculars and realized it WAS a snake.
It was a melanurus out swimming in the shallow water hunting. And it was BIG! I have seen many indigos/cribos in the wild and in captivity. I have seen quite a few wild 7-8 foot TX Indigos over the years, but I have never seen a snake this large in the wild before in my life. It must have been over 9 feet, if not larger, and was larger in diameter than any Drymarchon I have ever seen.
The only photo I could get was of its body as it swam along slowly in the shallow weeds. The photo doesn't convey the size, but I assure you - this was a monster. The head was about at the left edge of the frame and the tail was well off past the right edge.
There was no way to get to it, so we just sat and watched it hunt for about 10 minutes until it went around the back of the weeds out of sight.
-----
Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas
