Stepped out the back door to find this. Awesome the way snakes move!
Tag: snakes
Another snake
This from yesterday. As last time, almost off the trail. Definitely alive, but very sluggish — I gently nudged it with a stick. Syd yelled at his dogs to keep them away from it. Happily, none really noticed snake nor yelling. And regardless, managed not to step on it.
Here’s the last one (30 September) — different coloration:
And this from November 2016 — Falsa Crucera de Hocico Respingado – Lystrophis dorbignyi (the tail is a giveaway):
And this from last November — Falsa Coral – Oxyrhopus rhombifer rhombifer (?):
I’m not particularly into snakes, but it presents an interesting challenge to figure out “who’s who” in the local snake world.
On the walk
I’ve walked by this many times, but this day it caught my attention: burned-out (from the fire that deforested our dog-walk area) trunk of a pine tree. Charred outer bark, and inside the wood is disintegrating in rectilinear chunks. Huh?
Then, a snake. OK, just a snake – but no, the air was quite cool; the sun was quite hot, and the sky was blue dotted with puffy clouds, and it was lying still, almost into the sandy trail. We tried to keep the dogs from noticing it – and they didn’t – but because Syd and I stopped to look at it, three dogs came back, curious about the unusual human behavior. One almost danced on top of it, but amazingly none stepped on it. And still it didn’t move.
My best guess is it got to the side of the trail in lovely radiant heat from the sun, but when a cloud blocked the sun the cool air took over, its energy went away. I am not a biologist, much less a herpetologist. If you know more, I’d be interested to hear if I’ve got a handle on this.
It appears to be Lystrophis dorbignyi, or South American hognose snake.
Dog walk observations
A snake. Of the dogs, only Benji paid attention. When the snake adopted what looked like a striking position, we were both yelling at him to leave it alone.
He did, and it continued on its way off the path.
Recent winds turned the sand “roads” into recording media.
We stare at them, perplexed. We did settle on one type of track (not shown here) being caused by a beetle. But these remain mysterious.
And this must (?) be from a lizard, probably 20-30 cm long.
Dog walking critters
Yesterday, suddenly all the dogs were barking — at something just off the trail. Judging by the markings on the back, this doesn’t seem to be the one we saw a week ago.
And then a snake, similar markings to a dead one Syd and I saw. Not sure what’s going on with its tail. About 50 cm long and moving quickly to get away from us..