Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
Greene, H.
1987
20 December crawling very slowly in some broad leaved plants
(continued) that arise from a large stump, such that the
snake was ≈1.6 m above water. This snake I watched
until ≈ 2253 hr, and it crawled continuously over and
between leaves. It moved over a leaf w/ head and neck
on the leaf, seemingly sweeping and not avoiding
contact as in D. cendua - my impression was that
it was behaving (with)
Leptodeira septentrionalis,
and
using the extensible neck to bridge gaps but not
to search without touching leaves. The tongue was
protruded frequently. At 2055 hrs, an L. irianus ≈0.8 m
above water in dense leafy tangle (small leaves),
crawling slowly (741+283 mm, 37.3 g). Reacted to
handling by squirting, cloacal prolapse, and
emission of a foul (nauseating) odor. Palped two
Hyla elachroa,
freshly swallowed head first
(these were cf. A. saltatoris)
with a number of fresh green, jelly-less eggs
(2.1, 2.2g). At 2315 hr I could no longer see the
second snake, but found a fourth, ≈½ adult
size, ≈30 cm over water among stems of the
large aquatic-emergent plants. Squirmed and
emitted foul odor when handled, stomach empty.
Raining very hard now, and seemingly the harder
it falls the harder the frogs sing!
21 December cloudy with hints of sky as I walked to breakfast-
and two♂Iguanas iguana already visible although
it's overcast. By 0800 hr there is bright sun.