Finally back from Venezuela and what an incredible place. Margarita island is gorgeous! Lush on the windward side, it sort of looks like Maui. The leeward side is reminds me of the deserts near Tucson on Cabo San Lucas albeit with larger vegetation.
I went to the National Park La Restinga one of the days and asked one of the old timers (40 years living on the island) guiding us through a tour of the mangroves about any snakes in the area. Through his broken English and my Spanglish it was clear that rattlesnakes were reasonably common on the west end of the island. I asked him about other big snakes and he held his arms far apart and nodded yes. It would have obviously been a lot more helpful to have brought a photo of a cribo along but unfortunately I forgot.
Something else to think about though.
On another day trip I went to Los Roques. It's a chain of small coral atolls well known for snorkeling and bonefishing. One EVERY one of the islands was some small species of teids. They were about the size of small desert whiptail lizards and were so dark as to be nearly black. These islands are very far from land and very well isolated.
If the lizards are there, I'm sure they are on Margarita itself. They would be the perfect food for small cribos. Given the confirmation of rattlesnakes and the loads of ground birds I saw in the dry areas, there's clearly a food source sufficient to support the island cribos. It's difficult to tell whether the guide was speaking of the boas which reside in the mangrove forests or some other large snake. All I can offer is that the terrain looks exactly like the pictures I've seen of erebennus habitat in south texas and there's plenty of food.
It was a beautiful island, I plan on going back again. This time I'll take photos of cribos with me to confirm and see what I can come up with.
Matt
