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Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
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Transcription
16 March
(cherriei active on surface of leaf litter, at 0840,
(continued)
near the crest of the Arboretum (left of the trail)
I saw a ~18" snake crawling in dappled
sunlight toward a log and thought sure
it was a Bothrops asper - but it is a
Xenodon rhabdophthalmus. As soon as
pinned it strikes, gapes, flattens, thrashes
- looks incredibly like a viper. When I
let it bite a snake bag, the fangs are
rotated to a surprising degree and repeatedly
stabbed the cloth. After a few seconds there
were obvious large wet areas of saliva/venom
where the snake's mouth held the bag. Got live
weight from Ricki Van Berkelum to match the
pickled Ameiva festiva I palpated out of the
Aphylis aceros - the lizard has a snout vent
of 50mm or perhaps slightly greater allowing
for shrinkage. She has live ones of SV 51,
wt. 3.4g, and SV 49, wt. 3.1g. I'd estimate
the prey at 3.5g, since her lizards have
been in sacks for a while. From 1400-1600
walked out West River Rd, turned trash in cacao
grove, walked to ~400m on New Research Trail,
over to Arboretum and back. At 1423 I found
a Rhadinora decorata (side Savage key, but has
bright orange belly) crawling across trail at ~670m