Well I just got back from an 8 day trip to Phuket, Thailand. The primary objective of the trip was scuba diving but I managed to squeeze in some jungle hiking to look for reptiles (mostly snakes, hopefully a cobra).
I hiked a few kilometers into the only national park in Phuket, past a waterfall and along a rainforest creek. The vegetation was very dense, lots of bamboo, spiders, insects, heat, and humidity. After 3 hours of hiking, the only herps I had seen were a couple unidentified agamid lizards, and I was about ready to turn around. But first I kneeled down to take a drink of water, and I noticed a snake to my right! Without seeing its head I guessed by the scales, shape, and coloration that it was a viper of some sort, and I was right.
It was the first venemous snake I ever caught. I manipulated it with a couple of long sticks so I could photograph it. It was in a bamboo thicket, obviously an arboreal ambush hunter. However, I have no clue what species it is. Anyone know?
I never saw a cobra (except in captivity) but I deemed the expedition a success nevertheless!!!
On my way back I also saw a monitor lizard, not sure what species. Because a thunderstorm was approaching, the understory of the forest was far too dark to get a decent picture. It was about 3 feet long, dark colored with yellow speckling. I gave chase but of course the monitor easily outran me without trying too hard. Then it started dumping rain and I got drenched from head to toe!
Diving in the Similan Islands was fantastic. I didn't see any banded sea kraits (unfortunately), but I did come across a nice hawksbill sea turtle. On an un-herp-related note, I also saw a few whitetip reef sharks, a leopard shark, and a manta ray, in addition to moray eels, grouper, snapper, anenomefish, etc.
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1.0 Sandfire x Yellow Bearded Dragon - "Irwin"
0.1 Albino Black Ratsnake - "Misty"
0.1 California Mountain Kingsnake (multifasciata) - "Bandit"
