Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Heres a little fellow I found one night in the Maya Mtns, Cayo, Belize. Took a moment to ID it as it has no common name and is not in Campbell and Lamars book, had to use the local guide from the Belize Zoo. Sweaty work carrying books around in the jungle at night!LOL

Looks like that guy was ran over? In any case, I have a Coniophanes fissidens and will find a pic and post it.

Dan

He had some healed injury of some sort, I found him while walking the jungle around the lodge we were staying at, but he still insisted on taking a bite out of my finger just prior to taking that photo. I was hoping for some B.atrox pics but after 4 nights of hunting I didnt see one, though I saw many other venomous types of the insect variety.

Yea, if it gets slow herping in the tropics, just turn on a light and watch what flies in. In Indonesia under the light I saw some moths and beetles that were as big as the bats and birds. Some of those rhino beetles also.

Dan

Congrats on the nice find. I was in Belize for a week last year in May, staying in a small village (Unitedville) with a friend of mine, and only found one snake while there, a Drymobius. We did find a nice big cane toad (the taxonomy escapes me) and some Ctenosaurs though. One thing in your post here caught my eye though. I'm under the impression that asper, rather than atrox, occurs in Belize. Am I mistaken here, or did you make a typo? I think the specimen at the Belize Zoo is an asper, and all their animals are either rescues or at least locals. I'm not trying to insult your intelligence or anything, just wanting to clear this up incase I'm able to make it down there again for some more jungle herping. A friend of ours in the village who does a lot of hunting took us to a place in the forest where he killed a "tommygoff" a week or so prior to our arrival. The skeleton remained, quite clean, and appeared very viperid to me. Of course, there's no way I could've made a proper identification to it, but I believe it was an asper (or maybe atrox now?).

By the way, speaking of tommygoff, have you noticed that the locals interestingly use this to describe any venomous, or potentially venomous, snake they see? There's the yellow-jawed tommygoff, which would be the asper, then the jumpging tommygoff, or Atropoides, and the tree tommygoff, or the schlegs. I just found this little tidbit interesting. At least it is somewhat descriptive of the actual species incase of a bite, even if they insist that the jumping tommygoff can leap 10' into a tree...heh.

Anyway, thanks for sharing the picture. By all means, post more if you have them.
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Chance Duncan
www.rivervalleyexotics.com

I too noticed that the locals called just about anything a "Tommygoff", interesting name, I have no idea where they got it from but it must be a story about it someplace.
Unfortunately the only asper I saw was at the Belize Zoo, talk about a neat place and they let you sign the wall when you leave, I of course had to sign my name near Steve Irwin's tag!LOL.
Cheers
Brett
p.S. I will post a pic of the asper when I get it uploaded.
Cheers
B

Black striped snake. Jumpy would be putting it nicely. Pinky eater straight from the wild.

Dan

Another view.

Dan

Pity there isnt more posted on the guarde de los caminos....very interesting snakes & Dan yours is really (really...)...sweet.
Lat-man....did that nip cause you any effect? This genera is supposed to be a bit more nasty...
I'd like to see a good ventral shot of yours Dan...if youre crazy enuff to free handle em like Lat! Speekn of free handling ...this shot made me sick to take it...

Cheers, RxR

What is that monster? Bug spray it. Just kidding. Here is a ventral shot. I tried to hold it for the photo but it got nippy, so it got the container treatment.

Dan

Ha you chkn-lickn'd out eh....mebbe a real rearfanger otta be maintaining that cone-head.....someone as gutsy as.... lat. I think Id hafta hook em!
When that baby goes after a live mouse, does it constrict & maticate ala a lyre or mussurana....or just bite/chew & thrash about???
More jpgs & txt would be appreciated.... RxR

Actually no chicken involved. I just did not want my bloody hand in the pic and the comments to follow. They actually just bite on and hold the pink. I am sure with a larger prey item, there would be more thrashing and such. Since this one is a small specimen, it is fed pinks and they really do not have much punch back if you know what I mean. It eats well however is very watchful, and I will attempt to get a photo next time I feed.

itchy,some edema, bled pretty freely, but not much else, probably hurt alot less than that what that THING in your hand could do, LOL. Centipedes make me bawl like a baby, and that picture just ruined my next 3-4 nights of sleep. As I recall my little road guarder had a plain belly just like Dan's.

I can't resist. Raised this Peruvian Giant from a hatchling; when I sold it, it was about half an inch shy of a foot. I'll spare you the mouse eating pics.

By the way, awesome snakes.

Steve

...I chucked my coffee all over the 'puter when your evil jpg loaded...thats what nasty lookn alien. Hard to believe there are small snakes like tantillas that can actually specialize on these freeks....

The centipedes that give me the creeps are of the little long-legged house variety that look like eyebrows zooming across the floor. The big ones I can handle (not literally); the methods for manipulating them are very similar to those for dangerous snakes. I've never been bitten by one, but know someone who has, and it sounded decidedly unfun.