Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
H. H.
1987
June 16
(continued)
light coil at the end of a rotten fallen limb
~10 cm in diameter, facing the [illegible] length of the
limb - ~1m, ending at a large fallen log. Snake
jerked to alertness when touched w/ a snake stick,
suggesting to me that it was asleep. Viper was in
a good position to strike an oncoming rodent,
which perhaps it would only do at night.
While walking out to see that snake, at 1302 hr,
I spied a Leptophis nebulosus (735+465, 54g)
ging into
a crack/hole/litter at the base of a buttressed
tree beside the trail at ~1:00 CES. Snake propped
the cloaca & thrusted when grasped, snifting
a foul and distinctive smell (vaguely like
agkistrodon), as soon as in the open it gaped
widely, orienting to my moving hand, and
stunned and bit at close objects. At 1400 hr,
I was sent to the bathroom below cabin #3
where there was a Leptodeira septentrionalis
on a baseboard, in the dark behind the door
(480+126, ?, 16.0g, no food). This morning was
sunny, hot, humid, but by 1500 hr it is
dark and there is loud, long thunder. Rained
until after dinner. Went w/ Joanne Sharpe to see
the young Lachesis, which at 2010 hr was in
the raised alert posture, facing E, and on the
"original" pallet at the tree base. Thus,
sometime since this morning she had