The snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

Illustrations

The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago  - The W. L. Moody, Jr., Natural History Series

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The Snakes

Hans E. A. Boos

of Trinidad and Tobago TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY PRESS

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C O L L E G E S TAT I O N

Copyright ©  by Hans E. A. Boos Manufactured in the United States of America All rights reserved First edition Reproduction of the color photographs was made possible by the generous support of Gerard Williams of Century Eslon, Ltd., and Julius O. Boos. The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, .-. Binding materials have been chosen for durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Boos, Hans E. A., – The snakes of Trinidad and Tobago / Hans E. A. Boos.— st ed. p.

cm.— (W. L. Moody, Jr., natural history series ; no. )

Includes bibliographical references (p.

).

 --- (cloth) . Snakes—Trinidad and Tobago. I. Title.

II. Series.

.   .'—dc

-

To my parents,

Oscar and Gwen

Contents Illustrations  Acknowledgments  Abbreviations



Introduction  Taxonomy and Species Accounts  Family: Leptotyphlopidae—Thread Snakes Family: Typhlopidae—Blind Snakes Family: Aniliidae—Pipe Snakes







Family: Boidae—Boas and Pythons  Family: Colubridae—Harmless Snakes



Subfamily: Xenodontinae  Subfamily: Dipsadinae  Subfamily: Colubrinae  Family: Elapidae—Coral Snakes, Cobras, Mambas  Family: Viperidae—Pit Vipers (Mapepires)  Snakebite: Antidotes and Anecdotes  Appendix . The Belgian Black Stone  Appendix . Identifying Large, Diurnal, Mostly Black Snakes in Trinidad and Tobago



Glossary  References Index 



Illustrations MAP Trinidad and Tobago

page 

FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

How to count dorsal scale rows Typical head scalation of family Leptotyphlopidae Leptotyphlops albifrons, ground puppy Typical head scalation of family Typhlopidae Helminthophis sp., yellow-head ground puppy Typhlops brongersmianus, burrowing snake Head scalation of Anilius scytale Typical head scalation of family Boidae Boa constrictor constrictor, macajuel, litter Juvenile boa constrictor Boa constrictor with abnormal skin patterning Boa constrictor and deer Corallus ruschenbergerii, cascabel dormillon Epicrates cenchria maurus, rainbow boa Rainbow boa in a defensive “ball” Eunectes murinus gigas, huilla, huille (anaconda) “Big Annie” Anaconda reported to have swallowed heifer calf Anaconda and bull Typical head scalation of family Colubridae Clelia clelia clelia, black cribo, hatchling Erythrolamprus bizona, false coral snake Hydrops triangularis neglectus, water coral, juvenile Liophis reginae zweifeli, high-woods coral Oxyrhopus petola petola, false coral Pseudoboa neuwiedii eating Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni

                     90    

x . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Illustrations

Siphlophis cervinus, checkerbelly Thamnodynastes sp., striped swamp snake Atractus trilineatus, three-lined snake Atractus cf. univittatus, Tobago one-lined snake Sibon nebulata nebulata, cloudy snake Sibon nebulata nebulata with eggs Chironius multiventris septentrionalis, long-tailed machete savane Drymarchon corais corais, yellow-tail cribo Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti, machete couesse, juvenile Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis, dos cocorite, immature Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus, yellow-belly puffing snake Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus eating Bothrops Spilotes pullatus pullatus, tigre Typical head scalation of family Elapidae Typical head scalation of family Viperidae Juvenile Bothrops atrox, mapepire balsain, eating a common coral snake Bothrops atrox juveniles Clifford Chan handling Bothrops Clifford Chan’s hand after Bothrops bite David Archer’s leg after Bothrops bite Lachesis muta muta, mapepire zanana Lachesis muta muta with eggs Autopsy of a mapepire zanana reveals pentastomid worms Belgian black stone and pamphlet

PLATES following page  . . . . . . . . . . . .

Typhlops trinitatus, Trinidad burrowing snake Anilius scytale scytale, burrowing false coral Boa constrictor constrictor, macajuel, head Boa constrictor constrictor, fully patterned adult Corallus ruschenbergerii, cascabel dormillon Epicrates cenchria maurus, rainbow boa, adult Eunectes murinus gigas, huilla, huille, juvenile Clelia clelia clelia, black cribo, adult Clelia clelia clelia, black cribo, hatchling Erythrolamprus aesculapii, false coral snake Erythrolamprus ocellatus, red snake, Tobago Helicops angulatus, water mapepire

                       

Illustrations

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Hydrops triangularis neglectus, water coral Hydrops triangularis neglectus hatching from egg Liophis cobellus cobellus, mapepire mangue, juvenile Liophis cobellus cobellus albino Liophis melanotus nesos, beh-belle chemin Liophis reginae zweifeli, high-woods coral Liophis reginae zweifeli underside Oxyrhopus petola petola, false coral, adult Oxyrhopus petola petola juvenile Pseudoboa neuwiedii, ratonel, adult Pseudoboa neuwiedii hatchling Siphlophis cervinus, checkerbelly Tripanurgos compressus, mapepire de fe Attractus trilineatus, three-lined snake Dipsas variegata trinitatis, snail-eating snake Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa, fiddle-string snake Leptodeira annulata ashmeadi, false mapepire Ninia atrata, collared snake Sibon nebulata nebulata, cloudy snake Chironius carinatus carinatus, machete savane Chironius multiventris septentrionalis, long-tailed machete savane Drymarchon corais corais, yellow-tail cribo Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus, lora Leptophis stimsoni, gray lora Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti, machete couesse Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti, color form Oxybelis aeneus, horse whip Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis, dos cocorite Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus, yellow-belly puffing snake Spilotes pullatus pullatus, tigre Tantilla melanocephala, black-headed snake Micrurus circinalis, common coral snake Micrurus lemniscatus diutius, large coral snake Bothrops atrox, mapepire balsain Bothrops atrox juvenile Lachesis muta muta, mapepire zanana

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Acknowledgments When I was a little boy, my father, Oscar, once told me that nature was on the defensive and that humans would have no chance of survival if the animals of the world—among which he wisely included the insects—suddenly ganged up and decided to attack us. He said that animals were the way they were because they had been made that way, and they could not help it. If they inadvertently hurt us, it was perhaps our fault because we had carelessly blundered into them or threatened them, and all they really wanted was to be left alone. So it was better for us, if we did not understand them, to give them a wide berth. But in the next breath he would show me how marvelous each creature was, thus making his admonition a secondary consideration. My early birthdays and Christmases were marked by gifts not only of the usual ephemeral toys but of books, in which were found the seeds of inquiry into our natural world. And what more enigmatic and mysterious group existed than the reptiles? In our garden there were always lizards—Anolis, Polychrus, Ameiva— and a galap, a fresh-water turtle (Rhinoclemmys), was our constant companion in the shower stall when we bathed every day under the supervision of an understanding and tolerant mother. Our hunting-prone uncles invariably had large land tortoises, morocoys (Geochelone), in fattening pens behind their houses, in a world where the words conservation and environment were yet to be heard. Stories of snakes—giant macajuels and tigres, and of course the dreaded mapepires, Balsaais (Bothrops atrox) and Zananas (Lachesis muta)—were told and retold, and these stories guaranteed the frisson of fear but also engendered a desire to be there. Preserved snake skins were often unrolled and shown off. Coral snakes, soaking in rum, preserved in glass tubes, were displayed as ornamental trophies, hung on dining or living room walls. It was a time of awakening, and of great ignorance. Neither my brother Julius nor I had ever seen a snake alive, close up, until we caught our first Leptodeira in our backyard. We kept it until it escaped from its Black Magic chocolate box cage; but not before we saw it eat one of the green anolis lizards we had learned to catch with either a grass loop or a lightning snatch from a palm or mango tree trunk. Our curiosity and, to some, daredevilishness, soon earned both of us reputations in school, as we showed off the serpentine prizes we took to biology classes in small tin boxes emptied of their geometry instruments.

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Acknowledgments

To our surprise, we discovered that the very fear and ignorance that snakes inspired in others encouraged us; at a young age and with little or no technical knowledge available to us, we became teachers and advocates for tolerance toward these creatures. For his support and often his direction, I am forever grateful to my brother Julius. Meeting Ludolph Wehekind and Arthur Greenhall at the Royal Victoria Institute Museum was a milestone along the new road I had taken; their kindness and support is fondly remembered. The names of others who have assisted me in my quest in Trinidad and Tobago crowd in on my memory: Garth Underwood, George Gorman, Jack Price, Richard Ross, James “Skip” Lazell, Victor Quesnel, Jan Lindblad, and John Dunstan. My companions in the field are also remembered: Elliot Olton, Alexander “Sandy” Gibson, Ted Carr, Chris Bayne, Chris “Bup” Telfer, John Seyjagat, John Correia, Joep Moonen, Peter Dickson, and Allan Rodriguez. I could not have produced this work without the help and encouragement of the men and women from the museums and zoos of the world: John Behler, Charles Cole, Carol Townsend, Jerry Dave Hardy, Andrew Stimson, Paul Greenhall, Harold Cogger, Robert Henderson, James Dixon, and Charles Carpenter. The photographs are all my work except where noted, but I could not have recorded my subjects so well had the following people not shown me the way and loaned me equipment when my own fell short; Sandy Gibson, Peter Reis, Raymond Mendez, and Fred Meyers were teachers and mentors of my efforts. This work was made infinitely easier by Lise Winer, whose preparation of the manuscript, editing, and suggestions are gratefully acknowledged. Her ability to unearth obscure and very old references has helped lend more depth of history to this work. To Detta Buch go special thanks for her patience with my computer illiteracy and for her teaching skills, which made me understand the maze of this electronic age. To all these people, and to those I may inadvertently have omitted, go my eternal gratitude. To myself I assign all blame for any of the shortcomings or errors in this work.

Abbreviations The specimens that support this work are stored in the following museums; the codes used are listed by Leviton et al. () except TRVL, RVIM, and UWI. AMNH ANSP BMNH CAS-SU CM FMNH LACM MBUCV MCZ MNHN MPM NMBE NMW RMNH RT RVIM SMF TCWC TRVL UF UMMZ

American Museum of Natural History, New York Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. British Museum (Natural History), London California Academy of Sciences, Stanford University, Palo Alto, U.S.A. Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, California, U.S.A. Museo de Biología, Escuela de Ciencias, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France Milwaukee Public Museum, Wisconsin, U.S.A. Natürhistorisches Museum, Berne, Switzerland Natürhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria Rijksmuseum voor Natuurlijke Historie, Leiden, Netherlands Richard Thomas Collection, University of Puerto Rico Royal Victoria Institute Museum, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Natur-Museum und Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collection, Texas A&M University, College Station, U.S.A. Trinidad Regional Virus Lab (CAREC), Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Florida State Museum, University of Florida, Gainesville, U.S.A. University of Michigan, Museum of Zoology, Ann Arbor, U.S.A.

xvi USNM

UWI ZMUC ZMB ZSM

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Abbreviations

United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (now National Museum of Natural History) U.S.A. University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Københavns Universitet Zoologisk Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark Zoologisches Museum und Institut für Spezielle Zoologie und Zoologisches Museum, Berlin, Germany Zoologische Staatssammlung, Munich, Germany

Introduction

The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

Map 1. Trinidad and Tobago. Map by Jalaludin Khan.

Introduction

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Introduction

The twin-island independent nation of Trinidad and Tobago is zoologically out on a limb. Although the islands lie close to the South American mainland and derive most of their fauna from this continent, they are seldom included in works covering South America. Yet as regards fauna they are not considered truly West Indian or Antillean in works on this island-dotted area. Trinidad is a roughly square island of , square miles (, sq km; Murphy ), situated between ˚ ’ and ˚ ’ north latitude and ˚ ’ and ˚ ’ west longitude, within sight of the Venezuelan Paria Peninsula in the northwest and of the Orinoco River delta from the south coast and southwestern tip of Icacos Point. Tobago, a rounded oblong, lies at ˚ ’ north and ˚ ’ west, covering  square miles ( sq km) (see map). As noted, the reptiles found on Trinidad and Tobago—snakes, lizards, turtles and tortoises, and crocodilians—are mainly derived from the South American continent. In effect, these are offshore South American islands, and the reptile forms occurring on these islands differ little from or are identical to those found on the mainland. There is little endemism, Tobago having the distinction of having at least one species and one subspecies of snake and one or two lizards unique to its catalogue of reptilian fauna. However, there are several enigmas and mysteries concerning the species found on both the islands, notably where some recorded species are represented by a single specimen, such as, on Trinidad, Erythrolamprus bizona, E. aesculapii, Helminthophis sp., and Anilius scytale. These mysteries are deepened by the presence of some species on Tobago but not on Trinidad, such as Erythrolamprus ocellatus and Atractus cf. univittatus, when the reverse would be expected if one accepts that the fauna is derived from South America. One

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

would expect numbers decreasing with distance of islands from the mainland, yet Trinidad is a mere  km from the mainland coast in the north and  km in the south, while Tobago is  km farther to the northeast.

Topography, Climate, and Plate Tectonics Descending the arc of the West Indian archipelago, Trinidad and Tobago are the last pair of islands, tucked in east of the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela. Trinidad is approximately  km wide by  km long, with two extensive peninsulas in the northwest and southwest, a broader-based one in the northeast, and only a southward-pointing finger of land in the southeast (see map). Three mountain ranges form the main topological feature of Trinidad. The Northern Range, with the highest peaks of El Cerro del Aripo ( m) and El Tucuche ( m), rises from the three Boca Islands of Chacachacare, Huevos, and Monos in the west and runs along the north coast almost to the northeastern tip at Point Galera. The Central Range, its highest point being Mount Tamana ( m), runs diagonally across the central plains from southwest to northeast. The Southern Range, highest in the east, is a lower, broken range of hills flanking the south coast. These hills are seldom higher than  m, the highest point being  m. These mountains and hills are variably covered with residual primary forest, secondary growth, and extensive estates of mixed crops of coffee, cocoa, bananas, and other various fruit and shade trees. Portions of the western area of the Northern Range have been deforested and are covered with seasonally burned grasslands, with some surviving palms and Caribbean pine plantations. Some deforested areas are planted with short-crop vegetables and herbs. The lowlands between the Northern, Central, and Southern ranges are intensively planted with sugarcane and other crops such as citrus, cocoa, coffee, and bananas. Where the lowlands fringe the coast on the east, and in the southwestern peninsula, there are extensive coconut plantations, with some meat and dairy cattle on pasture lands in between. Two large and two small swamps occupy the estuaries of three rivers. In the northwest, the Caroni River, draining out of the western half of the Northern Range, feeds the partly fresh and partly brackish Caroni Swamp. The Nariva River and its tributaries and subsidiaries drain into the freshwater Nariva Swamp in the northeast coast. The South Oropouche Swamp in the southwest is fed by the Godineau River. Finally, the Blanquizalles Swamp on the southern coast of the southwest peninsula is fed by many small seasonal rivers that drain this extremely low area of land. Several other large rivers drain the mountain ranges and seasonally flood the forests and agricultural lands through which they flow.

Introduction

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Three large man-made reservoirs—the Hollis in the Northern Range and the Navet and Arena dams in the Central Range—now form lakes, creating preferred habitat for some reptiles. Trinidad has several small offshore islands, mainly on the north coast and off the northwestern peninsula, between the main island and the Venezuelan coast. Only five of these—Chacachacare, Huevos, Monos, Gaspar Grande, and Caledonia—have been found to have snakes as part of their reptilian fauna. Tobago, politically a part of Trinidad, juts out into the Atlantic Ocean  km northeast of Trinidad and is  km long. It runs at an angle from southwest to northeast, a spine of forest and plantation-covered mountains occupying the center of the island. The highest point is  m. There are lowlands in the southwest, where a brackish swamp flanks the Bon Accord Lagoon. Several rivers drain the central range. The Hillsborough Dam, in the center of the island, forms a lake that is the habitat for some reptile life. The climate of Trinidad can be roughly divided into a “wet season” from May to December, and a “dry season” from January to April, both seasons being interrupted by dry and wet periods that may or may not be clearly experienced or defined. Temperatures range from  to ˚C (–˚F). Tobago’s climate is similar to Trinidad’s except that it is somewhat drier and may be slightly cooler due to the stronger influence of the trade winds. Trinidad was not always where it is today. In the Mesozoic Era (between  and  million years before the present), land that was eventually to become Trinidad lay farther west, between the North and South American land masses, and was slowly moving east through what would become the Caribbean Sea, pushed by the movement of the Caribbean tectonic plate as it slid past the westward-moving North and South American plates. Eventually joined to other sedimentary and basaltic rocks, the proto-Trinidad swung slightly south of east to snuggle up to the coast of the South American continent, which itself was undergoing great geological change created by the rising of the Andean mountain range, where the South American plate rode over the eastward-moving South Pacific plate. As Trinidad moved along what was then the northern edge of South America, land above sea level that was periodically joined to and separated from the mainland to the south must have been colonized by both plant and animal species evolving and spreading across that continent. The story of Tobago is similar, but it is believed to have been closer to northern Venezuela for a time and subject to colonization by fauna there; Trinidad at that time ( million years before present) was farther to the south and east. Today Trinidad lies south and west of Tobago. This early colonization of both islands may account for the great geographical distances between the ranges of some snakes from South America and those found in extremely small numbers on Trinidad and on Tobago.

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

Scope of This Book This volume about snakes is the first of a series of three. The second volume will cover the remaining reptiles of Trinidad and Tobago—lizards, amphisbaenids (legless lizards), turtles and tortoises, and crocodilians. The third will cover the amphibians—frogs and toads. Reptiles in Trinidad and Tobago are viewed with great ambivalence. Turtles and tortoises are considered primarily as food, sometimes being kept to be fattened for eating, and only secondarily as pets or as the basis for tourist artifacts in the form of jewelry and stuffed juveniles. Crocodilians (caiman) are seen as a nuisance and as dangerous to livestock and children but sometimes also as food in rural areas, where any freely available wild meat is valued. Large lizards, such as the iguana and the matte (tegu), are considered a bounty of wild meat; small lizards are seen as hardly worthy of notice, any more than other incidental bush or yard fauna. However, the noisy house-dwelling geckos and the slow-moving Iguanid lizard Polychrus are feared due to folk belief that they are poisonous, and they are frequently killed or discouraged from occupying their chosen habitats. Snakes, however, are a different matter. Whether known to be venomous or not, they are almost invariably set upon and killed (Greenhall ). This is so even in Tobago, where there are no venomous snakes and where this fact is widely known. Some species, especially the larger boas, are killed and the body fat is utilized for the distilling of snake oil. Recently, there has been an emerging vogue to keep some species as pets and to breed the live-bearing boas for the pet trade. The reptiles of Trinidad and Tobago, familiar as they are to the people of the islands, remain subject to mixed emotions. Conflicts between age-old superstitions and an emerging new awareness of our natural world lead to actions that often err on the side of caution and result in the continued extirpation of reptile fauna. It is my hope that that this book, with photographs of each snake species (most in color) found on Trinidad and Tobago, will inform people about every aspect of the life history, zoology, and folklore of these animals. Such knowledge, augmenting the usual curiosity that everyone has about snakes, can only be beneficial to both parties. In an emerging generation with attention focused on the television screen and the Internet, residual superstitious fears may be allayed; it is on this new generation that survival of our natural world and its inhabitants will depend. Snakes, demystified and demythified, become fascinating, unique creatures worthy of a closer look, and this may be their salvation. In this work, each snake, each unique species, is described in its zoological place. Its family, genus, species, and subspecies (if applicable) are named. Naming fixes each species in relation to others in the surrounding world. Local

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names are recorded too, the names traditionally given to animal species due to people’s inherent wish to catalogue and categorize the world, for such names reach back in time to the first encounters between human and snake. Names like mapepire and macajuel echo from the ages before Europe opened doors to the West, and succeeding generations of colonizers and conquerors added the dife and the dormillon to categorize what they found. Today, local names still focus on and identify what, for many people, the scientific name continues to mystify. Every local name found in the writings of the past two centuries has been included here. Brought together too are the recorded observations of those who have shared my enthusiasm for snakes. The sometimes mysterious and shy life histories of snakes, their eating habits and preferences, their habitats, their ways of life and of reproducing their kind, and their perceived or real menace are examined and catalogued as completely as written works, history, memory, and experience allow. No record would be complete without a telling of the conflicts and the imaginings that have arisen wherever humans and snakes have come upon one another, whether in the primitive jungles of our past lives or more recently in the corners of the globe where we spread our progeny. To the hunter-gatherer, the primitive farmer, or the modern developer or home gardener, there is always an initial shock in coming upon the silent presence of a snake. In a bush, in a tree, in a hollow in the earth, under discarded debris, eyes ever open—watchful, waiting, or disappearing into the grass as if by magic, the snake has never evoked indifference. Several years ago, a little booklet I had the honor to co-author (Boos and Quesnel )—flawed as it was—began a modest transformation. Awareness, knowledge, and pictures helped to bring to a generation of schoolchildren a new attitude. A few have grown up to pass on a healthier attitude toward wildlife, accepting that snakes are a legitimate part of our surrounding environment. They belong in our trees and bushes and in the hidden places, silently and rightfully there, belonging as much as the noisy birds we think of as a normal part of our daily lives. Here the tales of our fathers and our fathers’ fathers are retold, so that we can perhaps laugh or marvel at what they believed or reported to be true, for laughter and incredulity can dispel the darkness of ignorance; creatures of the night and the gloom, seen and exposed by day in their iridescent beauty, lose their menace. Perhaps we can banish the fear and develop a better understanding of these creatures. With understanding come respect and tolerance, and I hope a halt to the killing of one kind of animal because of unreasoning fear on the part of another. After all, we are all basically the same—amoeba and polyp, fish and amphib-

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

ian, snake, mammal, and human. There was incredulity and dark suspicion on the face of an old woman whose chicken was being eaten by a large macajuel when I refused to kill the snake. As I told her, its heart beat to no less a command than hers. With her son, who had called me rather than killing the hungry offender, perhaps a start had been made.

What Is a Snake? Snakes belong to one of the divisions, called an order, of the larger grouping, called the class, of Reptilia. There are about six thousand species in the Reptilia, divided into four orders: Chelonia: turtles and tortoises Crocodilia: crocodiles, alligators, caiman, and gavials Rynchocephalia: the tuatara (New Zealand) Squamata: lizards, amphisbaenids, and snakes

The lizards and snakes are closely related, there being snakelike lizards with reduced legs or no legs, and some snakes—the boas and pythons—having residual limbs in the form of anal claws. The suborder Serpentes, a further division of the Squamata, covers the snakes, which are then classified into several families and subfamilies, themselves divided into groups called genera. These are subdivided into species. Where there are separate, distinctly recognizable groups within the concept of what constitutes a species, especially distinct forms such as are found on islands like Trinidad and on Tobago, these forms are classified as a further division of the species—as subspecies. In an attempt to bring order to the classification of all animal and plant life, there is a system of giving each distinct form a scientific name. This has two components: a generic name describing the genus to which the form is believed to belong, and a specific name, which sometimes contains an indication of the appearance of the form, where it was discovered or lived, or the name of the discoverer or collector. Many systems were tried in the early stages of animal and plant cataloguing, but the system eventually agreed upon, and still in use today with slight modifications, was initiated by the Swedish scientist Carl von Linné (Linnaeus) in his work Systema Naturae (Classification of Nature) in . Linnaeus placed groups of animals that looked alike into ever-dividing subgroups. Using the boa constrictor as an example, the system looks like this:

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Kingdom: Animalia (animals) Phylum: Chordata (having a backbone) Class: Reptilia (reptiles) Order: Squamata (scaled reptiles) Suborder: Serpentes (snakes) Family: Boidae (boas and pythons) Genus: Boa Species: constrictor Subspecies: constrictor

The generic name or genus always begins with a capital letter and the species and subspecies with lower-case letters, and the whole name is italicized: Boa constrictor constrictor. This is the system of scientific names used throughout this book. What distinguishes a snake from other animals and especially from other reptiles within the Order Squamata—the lizards and amphisbaenids? Snakes as a suborder—the Serpentes—are more specialized than the lizards and amphisbaenids and live in habitats not usually used by the others: snakes include burrowers and arboreal forms, desert dwellers, and wholly pelagic (oceanic) forms. Snakes are distinctive in lacking some of the features normally associated with other animals, the most obvious being that they lack any limbs or legs. Except for vestigial elements of a pelvic girdle and a pair of external claws near the cloaca in the boas and one or two other subfamilies, there are no shoulder or hip girdles. Snakes have no movable eyelids and no external eardrums or ear openings. They are usually extremely elongate, their bodies and jaws modified for the eating of relatively large prey. Ranging from the largest—the pythons and boas— to the smallest—the burrowing thread and blind snakes—they are found in every climatic zone except Antarctica (there is one snake species that occurs inside the Arctic Circle in Europe). Contrary to popular belief, snakes are not “cold-blooded” but are poikilothermic; that is, they take heat or cooler temperatures from their surroundings. Neither are they wet and slimy, as often imagined. Their polished shiny scales and sinuous movements—as well as their morphological similarities to eels, which are cold and very slimy—have given rise to this misconception. Snakes’ scalecovered skins range from rough and fishlike to a mosaic of almost reflective or iridescent plates, over their entire body; even the eye is covered by a single lenslike transparent cap. The skin of a snake is shed periodically, to accommodate growth. The young, having a greater growth rate than adults, shed their skin more often. Snakes are wholly carnivorous, taking—according to their size—an amazing range, in bulk and variety, of other vertebrate animals. In a few cases some

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invertebrates are eaten by highly specialized species. Food is taken in whole, with swallowing aided by the action of sharp recurved teeth and by jaws that have elastic ligament attachments. This allows for the engulfing of prey items larger than the normal size and diameter of the head, throat, and body of the snake itself. Prey is seized and in some cases swallowed while still alive; in other cases prey is killed by constrictive coils that suffocate the victim or by venom injected by specialized teeth or fangs supplied with toxic saliva from specially adapted salivary glands. Strong digestive juices dissolve all tissue except teeth, feathers, and hair. Snakes are either oviparous, reproducing by laying soft, shell-covered eggs, or ovoviviparous, which means the young develop fully within a transparent, membranous egg sac within the female and are then all born simultaneously. Snakes have a single excretory and copulatory orifice called the cloaca, situated in the hind third of their bodies. This opening, used both for the expulsion of fecal and urinary matter and for copulation and egg laying or birth in females, is usually distinguished by having a covering of a large, sometimes divided anal scale. Male snakes are equipped with two penises or hemipenes, the structure of which is sometimes used as a species-diagnostic feature. This twin or “forked” organ lies inside the tail region immediately behind the cloaca. The number of eggs laid or young born is dependent on the species, size, and condition of the female. Most species of snakes exhibit no maternal care of their eggs or young, though in some families, such as the Boidae, Elapidae, and Viperidae, there are varying degrees of guarding or “incubation” of the clutch of eggs and parental care of the neonates. The young snakes go out into the environment fully equipped for survival, the venomous ones having a full and effective poison apparatus for killing and feeding. Snakes grow comparatively rapidly to sexual maturity. Once they near maximum size for the species, growth slows down considerably so that there is often little discernible increase in length for most species, though in the larger boas and pythons there may be an increased tendency to put on bulk and girth. At maximum size, large snakes have few enemies except humans, though with great longevity the chronic buildup of internal parasites can pose a hazard to an age limit much over thirty years.

Snake Habitats Snakes are by habit shy and retiring, preferring to stay hidden in their chosen habitats. Trinidad and Tobago provide many and varied habitats, which can be divided into several general categories where one can expect to find particular genera.

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Disturbed habitats are habitats that have replaced the natural ones, such as towns, roads, intensive agriculture, and man-made lakes and reservoirs; most of these have little or no snake fauna. However, gardens, with the man-made environments of bushes, trees, and lawns, do supply the required conditions for some snake species to survive. Where homes with gardens abut natural mountain or jungle habitat, there is often an overflow from the wild into the disturbed areas. The same is true for industry and manufacturing complexes as well as for some reservoirs that were carved out of formerly forest- or bush-covered land. Subterranean or burrowing habitats are home to several genera of snakes that are seldom seen due to their burrowing way of life. Living mainly underground in loose soil or under leaf litter, they are infrequently encountered—even the ones that have survived in suburban gardens. These genera are Anilius, Atractus, Erythrolamprus, Helminthophis, Leptotyphlops, Micrurus, Ninia, and Typhlops. Aquatic and semiaquatic habitats host genera almost totally confined to bodies of fresh (sometimes brackish) water: dams, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, roadside ditches and drainage canals, and seasonally flooded low-lying swamp forest. The genera involved are Eunectes, Helicops, Hydrops, Liophis, and Thamnodynastes. Terrestrial habitats are the domain of genera that, though mainly terrestrial, will conceal themselves under piles of leaves or lumber and in hollow logs and often coil in low trees or spend part of their juvenile life in trees: Boa, Bothrops, Clelia, Epicrates, Lachesis, Leptodeira, Liophis, Oxyrhopus, Pseudoboa, Sibon, Siphlophis, and Tantilla. Arboreal habitats have their own assemblage of snakes. Though they may spend a major part of their life in trees and perhaps sleep there, these genera will forage on the ground and in ruins, also entering caves in search of prey: Chironius, Corallus, Dipsas, Drymarchon, Imantodes, Leptophis, Mastigodryas, Oxybelis, Pseustes, Spilotes, and Tripanurgos.

Herpetological History: Early Years, 1665–1886 Being feared—even hated—all over the world for their perceived dangerous or evil nature, snakes have seldom been ignored, and Trinidad and Tobago are no exception. In writings about the islands, awareness of the presence of snakes was reflected as early as , when, writing about Tobago, de Rochefort told of “monstruens serpens de douze à quinze pieds de long [monstrous serpents twelve to fifteen feet long]” (p. ). Aware or not of what de Rochefort had written, in  John Poyntz, endeavoring to encourage investors and immigrants to Tobago, omitted any references to snakes in his glowing description of Tobago, listing only what he saw as advantages to anyone who might go there.

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Roume de St. Laurent, that indefatigable advocate of French colonization of Spanish Trinidad, in support of his petition, wrote in  to the governor of Grenada of his findings and impressions of Trinidad during an eighteen-day tour of the island. He noted that there were “several kinds of snakes in Trinidad, and it is said that the coral snake and some other kinds are venomous, though they are unable to quote an accurate case of death in this way” (p. ). It is obvious that the still extant, widespread “they say” was a factor even in St. Laurent’s time when it came to reports or stories of snakes. Superlatives or oddities tended to be reported. In , George Cumberland related the deer-swallowing ability of a snake from Trinidad. William Young () reported killing a “Carpet Snake” in Tobago, the skin of which measured  feet (. m). Young exaggerated or was forgetful—he reported the same snake in his private diary for  as being not  feet skinned but  feet. He also noted, confirming an earlier report (Anon. ), that snakes were used as food by slaves in Tobago; if it is true that snakes were eaten, it is a practice no longer—or only secretly—in force there today. Such accounts were often built upon, and it was not long after this that tales and superstitions were being related as fact, as exemplified by the story of - to -foot snakes in the lagoons of Trinidad, eating cattle and people and smacking the water with their tails to make a sound rivaling the roar of a -pound cannon (Hammet ). Hammet may have seen the original version of Captain Columbine’s Survey of Trinidad in  to Commodore Hood (excerpts of which were reprinted in the Port of Spain Gazette, August , ), where it was reported that “large water snakes, perfectly harmless, but from  to  feet long, are also found here [the River Ortoire] and are often at night heard lashing the water with their tails, producing a noise like the smashing of a cart whip.” Hammet () could not resist retelling the story to his brother in another letter the following year, embellishing his tale with another about a snake in the Aripo River “ feet” long and having “treble fangs” and thus being “vastly venomous.” However, the world was waking up, zoologically speaking, and specimens began to filter back to established scientific museums. Lizard specimens were sent to John Edward Gray (), in England, from a Mr. G. Buchanan in Tobago. Mrs. Carmichael, an astute observer of Trinidad in , noted that the boa constrictor was found in the woods there. Sir Andrew Halliday () listed not only coral snakes but also the anaconda (mistakenly called the boa constrictor) and another snake, the “Mauccaw” (macajuel). Knowledge about some snakes was obviously available in Trinidad to E. L. Joseph (b), who recognized that the island had only four kinds of poisonous snakes. He listed the two large constrictors, though he too confused the boa constrictor and the anaconda in this work as well as in his less well known novel Warner Arundell (a). More and more specimens were being sent to England,

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including a boa constrictor sent in  by Sir Henry McLeod, Governor of Trinidad (Zoological Society of London ); a specimen of Epicrates cenchria from Trinidad (Gray ); and another boa constrictor, the “Boiguacu,” from Tobago (Gray ). Charles William Day () pulled together many of the foregoing tales in his report, listing boa constrictors, huillia, and coral snakes; the last had been in the news a few years before, having been responsible for the first reported deaths from snakebite (Port of Spain Gazette, May , ). Dr. Jules François Court, a physician friend of Dr. L. A. A. de Verteuil, supplied the comprehensive, if small, catalogue of the snakes of Trinidad (Court ) for de Verteuil’s book on Trinidad. This list of specimens that Court was assiduously identifying, collecting, and cataloguing was the first attempt to enumerate scientifically the species of snakes (and other reptiles) from Trinidad. The collection was later donated to the Royal Victoria Institute Museum in Port of Spain when it opened in  (Mavrogordato ). Though Court used scientific names available to him at the time, the list is somewhat ambiguous. Following is Court’s list of the snakes with the modern equivalents. Tortryx Scytale Boa Constrictor Boa Murina Coluber Variabilis Dendrophis Liocercus Dendrophis Aurata Elaps Corallinus Trigonocephalus Jararaca Crotalus Mutus

= = = = or = = = = =

Anilius scytale Boa constrictor constrictor Eunectes murinus gigas Clelia clelia clelia Spilotes pullatus pullatus Oxybelis aeneus Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus Micrurus circinalis Bothrops atrox Lachesis muta

L. A. A. de Verteuil was a medical doctor, but his interests seem to have been wide and varied, as shown by the scope of his memoir about Trinidad (de Verteuil ). Educated in Paris, he or his friend and associate Jules François Court, who lived in Paris in  (Proceedings of the Scientific Association of Trinidad ), must have had access to works on natural history or on the herpetology of South America or possessed these in their libraries. Specific works already in print included those by Wied-Neuwied (a, b) and the Erpétologie générale by C. Duméril, Bibron, and A. Duméril, published between  and , and to which de Verteuil (:) seems to refer when he writes “Stenostoma albifrons of Dumeril.” General reference works on natural history were popular and were being published in the early part of the nineteenth century; among the general encyclopedias or dictionaries published in French were those by Bory de St. Vincent () and P. Gervais ().

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Whatever the circumstances in which this first list or catalogue was compiled, it is certain that there was growing interest in collecting and identifying all the strange or new forms of animals, including snakes, being discovered in the Americas; there was a steadily increasing flow of specimens to Europe for identification and inclusion in the catalogues being prepared by leading museums. Albert Gunther, in his catalogue of , recorded for Tobago Homolocranion melanocephalum (= Tantilla melanocephala), Ahaetulla liocercus (= Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus), and Dromicus melanotus (= Liophis melanotus nesos), sent by W. J. A. Ludlow, Esquire; and Spilotes corais (= Drymarchon corais corais), Herpetodryas carinatus (= Chironius carinatus), Scytale neuwiedii (= Pseudoboa neuwiedii), and Elaps lemniscatus (= Micrurus lemniscatus diutius) from Trinidad, though he misidentified Boa imperator as coming from Trinidad. Not only were specimens being sent to European museums; they were also being lodged in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and though no snakes were sent there by Theodore Gill, a professor of zoology from Trinidad, two new gecko species were described by Cope () as coming from Trinidad. These species were later synonymised with species previously named. Woodcock () noted that the “boa-constrictor is also native to the island” of Tobago and that “a snake is almost always found living in the nest of the leafcutting ants,” though he gives no name or description. With the influx of Prussians or Germans into Trinidad, starting with the troops commanded by Abercromby when he took Trinidad in , specimens began finding their way to museums in Germany. One particular specimen is of great importance, for it was the first record of the unique endemic snake from Tobago, described and named in  as a new species by W. Peters of the Berlin Museum. It is still known today by the name then assigned—Erythrolamprus ocellatus. In those middle years of the nineteenth century, expeditions were being sent out by many nations, and the movement of colonists, businessmen, and planters through the West Indies seemed to stimulate the many nationalities to vie with one another in natural history pursuits and the presenting of specimens to recognized institutions. The Menagerie at the Regent’s Park, later known as the Regent’s Park Zoo, received an iguana (Sclater ) sent by a Dr. J. F. Chittenden and four scorpion mud turtles (Sclater ) donated by S. Devenish, Esquire, one of the most famous and noteworthy sons of Trinidad of Irish extraction (de Verteuil ) and an author on shooting expeditions (Devenish ). It is natural, with such movement to and from the various West Indian islands, that errors were made. One of the most serious was the listing from Tobago by E. D. Cope in  of the mislabeled Ober collection, purporting to have come from Tobago. Among the specimens that Frederick Ober was supposed to have collected on Tobago, two of utmost importance stand out, as they have

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caused many incorrect listings and taxonomic mysteries down to the present: Drymobius boddaerti (= Mastigodryas bruesi) and Bothrops lanceolatus. (See species accounts of M. boddaerti dunni and Bothrops atrox for the full account of this taxonomic error.) De Verteuil republished his seminal book on Trinidad in , with no changes to Court’s “Catalogue of Reptiles.” This coincided with Hay’s  Handbook of the Colony of Tobago, published in Scarborough, Tobago—possibly the first scientific document published on that island, which at that date was politically independent of Trinidad. In Hay’s handbook, only the boa constrictor is mentioned, along with an indication that there were “not many varieties of snakes in the island” (p. ). It is probable that both Hay and de Verteuil anticipated the possibility of inclusion of their work in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of . Hay contributed to the Handbook and Catalogue covering this exhibition for the West Indies and British Honduras (Hay ), though he pointedly omitted snakes in his listing of the flora and fauna of Tobago, except for listing in the catalogue of exhibits two displays of (live?) snakes from a Dr. Tulloch and a Mr. H. L. Yeates. For certain, interest in the reptile fauna of Trinidad and Tobago was picking up. The Reverend W. H. Gamble () included in his book on Trinidad a few snake anecdotes he had absorbed during his nine years as a Baptist missionary there. G. A. Boulenger, at the British Museum, began to publish his catalogues of lizards (–) in its collection, many sent from Trinidad and Tobago. S. Garman, collecting specimens himself on Trinidad—assisted by and purchasing specimens from Trinidadian Charles Simeon Cazabon, a photographer and possibly the nephew of the famous painter Michael Jean Cazabon (MacLean )—published lists of lizards and, later, snakes (Garman ), adding several besides the ones already known: Stenostoma albifrons Xiphosoma hortulanum Epicrates cenchria Rhabdosoma lineatum Liophis cobella Dromicus melanotus Herpetodryas boddaerti Leptodeira annulata Dipsas cenchoa

= = = = = = = = =

Leptotyphlops albifrons Corallus ruschenbergerii Epicrates cenchria maurus Atractus trilineatus Liophis cobellus cobellus Liophis melanotus Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti Leptodeira annulata ashmeadi Imantodes cenchoa

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The Mole and Urich Years, 1886–1926 By the mid-s, this was the state of the knowledge about the snakes of Trinidad and Tobago: twenty-three species were listed for Trinidad and four for Tobago, which included the “carpet snake” or “boiguacu” (Boa constrictor). One of the most influential of snake men, Richard Richardson Mole, arrived in Trinidad on September ,  (Bodu ; Mole ). Usually known as R. R. Mole, he was a journalist and obviously a keen naturalist before coming to Trinidad. He soon sought out men of similar interest there and began to send snake specimens back to the British Museum, where G. A. Boulenger, perhaps his former friend and mentor, was then preparing his Catalogue of the Lizards in the British Museum. Five years after Mole’s arrival in Trinidad, his friendship and collaboration with Friedrick William “Jangoons” Urich resulted in their first publication. Mole was thirty-one years old, and Urich was only nineteen. Their first paper, “Notes on some reptiles from Trinidad,” the first specifically concerned with this subject, was published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in , no doubt assisted by their association with and donations to Boulenger at the British Museum of Natural History. Boulenger was by this time compiling a companion volume on snakes to accompany the previous catalogue of lizards. Mole and Urich’s paper added no new names to the list but rather recorded natural history observations of three snakes and one lizard, and they made mention for the first time of Mr. G. R. O’Reilly, later referred to as Dr. O’Reilly (Brown ), who was keeping a collection of live snakes at the time and was perhaps assisting Mole and Urich in collecting new, undescribed, and unlisted specimens from the wild. It is interesting to note that in the closing years of the nineteenth century, this paper by Mole and Urich concentrated on the habits and food of the snakes they were listing. They recorded (Mole and Urich b) that O’Reilly was keeping as pets animals that were generally considered dangerous, filthy—“a race abhorred,” and “creatures of the devil” (Bates :). O’Reilly later named a pet rainbow boa (Epicrates cenchria) “Jack,” which has become a common name for this species in Trinidad (Mole b). Mole too, judging from his subsequent writings, kept a considerable collection of live snakes (Greenidge ), a hobby shared at that time by few in the entire world. His publications were written in a style that would become popular in the first decades of the twentieth century and would make Raymond Ditmars and William Beebe famous writers and naturalists. Mole and his fellow naturalists banded together to form the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club on July , ; the first issue of their journal was published in April . This journal, probably typeset, edited, and printed by Mole himself, was a local vehicle for the publication of articles by the club’s members and

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other contributors. Among the first articles published was one by Mole (a)— “Notes on a Young Constrictor”—and under “Miscellaneous Extracts” appeared a reprint of the Mole and Urich  article from the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, thus giving local naturalists access to information probably not easily available from the foreign publication. The Zoological Society of London’s Proceedings of the General Meetings for Scientific Business for the year  record in the appendix the continued flow of specimens from Trinidad to the British Museum via Mole and Urich. In these Proceedings, another species is added—Liophis reginae. It is interesting to note that at times Urich’s initials are reversed (Zoological Society of London ) and that he is referred to as “Fritz” (Sclater ). In  W. A. Taylor, seemingly ahead of this time, noted that the “Doctor Snake” from Tobago—from his description it can be no other than the new species described by Peters twenty-five years before, Erythrolamprus ocellatus—was an example of “mimicry,” of the venomous coral snake, though it was itself nonvenomous. Taylor was obviously at that time unaware that E. ocellatus was an endemic species and had no coral snakes on Tobago to mimic. He also missed the fact that E. ocellatus lacks the distinct rings of either other species of Erythrolamprus or Micrurus but instead has light-centered ocelli on the dorsum. Also in , J. H. Hart added the genus Typhlops, without any reference to the species, noting only that this snake was found in the nests of “parasol ants.” Besides the sending or selling of preserved specimens to museums in Europe and the United States, there must have been a vigorous trade in supplying live specimens to zoological parks and gardens, which found a well-stocked reptile collection to be a drawing card for the visiting and paying public. For example, the record of a new addition to Trinidad’s reptile fauna is contained in a list of snakes sent by O’Reilly to the Collection of the Zoological Society of Philadelphia. Like Mole in later years, O’Reilly also actively collected in Venezuela and British Guiana (now Guyana), or traded and bought snake specimens brought over from the mainland, upon realizing there was a market in the United States and Europe for these animals usually killed and seen as disposable. Another member of the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club, Jean Petersen, collected snakes, and he exhibited a preserved collection of them at a club meeting on February ,  (Field Naturalists’ Club a). Charles Libert, another member, presented the club with a preserved collection of lizards and snakes in . These collections were probably added to the Court Collection when the Royal Victoria Institute Museum was opened but were lost in the fire of . The twenty-sixth addition to the Trinidad list sent to Philadelphia by O’Reilly was Helicops angulatus (Brown ). In  Boulenger published the first volume of the Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum, which was followed by volume  in . In these two volumes, Leptophis liocercus (= L. ahaetulla

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coeruleodorsus) and Petalognathus nebulatus (= Sibon nebulata) were added for Tobago. Erythrolamprus ocellatus was synonymised with E. aesculapii, being considered variety P. of this taxon. Lycognathus cervinus (= Siphlophis cervinius) and, in the “Addenda and Corrigenda” to volume , Phrynonax eutropis (= Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis) were added for Trinidad. Mole and Urich must have had an advance copy of volumes  and  of Boulenger’s Catalogue, as well as the addenda and corrigenda, for they “laid on the table” their “Preliminary List of Trinidad Reptiles” at the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club meeting of February , , which list is reported to have included thirty-four snakes; the list was published, listing only thirty-three species, six months later in the August  issue of the Journal of the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club (vol. , no. ), quoting from these Catalogue volumes. Of the seven extra species this list includes for Trinidad, only four are valid additions, the others being merely taxonomic variations, synonyms, distribution anomalies, or errors. Undeterred by any errors that might have crept into their list, Mole and Urich rushed off another paper to the Zoological Society of London, which was published in the Proceedings in . They claimed (Mole and Urich b) that their list had been examined by Boulenger of the British Museum and “Prof. Dr. O. Boettger of Frankfurt on the Main,” and they claimed to have seen personally all but six of the thirty-three species listed. This list fails to reflect accurately the twenty-eight species so far mentioned in the present work for Trinidad, for Mole and Urich had omitted three—Anilius scytale (de Verteuil ), Siphlophis cervinus (Boulenger :), and Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis (= old Phrynonax eutropis, Boulenger :)—and added incorrect listings or synonyms to already existing taxa: Epicrates cenchris var. fusca = E. cenchria maurus Corallus cookei var. melanea or ruschenbergii = C. hortulanus cookii Boa diviniloqua = B. constrictor constrictor (or wrong locality) Elaps riisei = Micrurus circinalis

The four valid new records were: Spilotes poecilostoma = Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus Herpetodryas macrophthalmus = Chironius multiventris septentrionalis Leptognathus nebulatus = Sibon nebulata Homolocranium melanocephalum = Tantilla melanocephala

This early record of Chironius multiventris septentrionalis is interesting. The single specimen with scalation characteristics falling within the parameters of this species (Dixon et al. ) was sent to Boettger in Frankfurt am Main by Mole and Urich (a). Though Boettger claimed he did not have enough ma-

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terial to make a positive determination, he identified the snake as Herpetodryas macrophthalmus, which Jan (, .c., part , pl. , fig. , quoted in Mole and Urich a:) had listed as a variant of H. carinatus (= Chironius carinatus). In subsequent years, this species was omitted from any lists or considerations of the snakes of Trinidad, C. carinatus being believed to be the single species. Anxious to have their updated list available to as many readers as possible, Mole and Urich had it published in a slightly reduced form in the report for the year  of the Royal Victoria Institute (Mole and Urich c), omitting the questionable second species of Corallus and Epicrates but retaining the ones of Boa and Elaps (= Micrurus). Tobago, overlooked in all the flurry of publishing lists, was the subject of a similar though small contribution by Boettger (a). To Tobago were added: Drymobius boddaerti = Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni Spilotes pullatus Oxybelis acuminatus = Oxybelis aeneus

Mole and Urich were at work again in , having sent some specimens to Boettger for identification, but they were able to list only one new find: Streptophorus atratus (= Ninia atrata). They also turned up three more specimens that conformed to Chironius multiventris septentrionalis but listed them as Herpetodryas carinatus var. macrophthalma; thus, when varieties were being pruned away in later years, multiventris (based on four specimens) became submerged in C. carinatus. Their Phrynonax fasciatus was a young, heavily marked specimen of Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis and not a new record. Another species was listed for Tobago by Boettger in —Oxyrrhopus neuwiedii (= Pseudoboa neuwiedii). By this date eight species of snakes had been recorded from Tobago, but the papers in which they were listed were at times so obscure and unavailable to the one person in Trinidad trying to keep track that Mole () thought there were only six or seven species on this island; he acknowledged that they were “all harmless.” Though their harmlessness was recognized by Mole, their destruction on Tobago through ignorance was also recognized as one of the reasons for the proliferation of rats, which were attacking the cocoa and coconut crops there (Guppy ). Mole continued to send reptile specimens, mainly snakes, to Boulenger at the British Museum, but besides collecting and buying these locally (Greenidge ), he was also importing them from Venezuela and British Guiana, and perhaps St. Lucia, as his species list of “Reptiles in Stock” for  includes species not found on Trinidad. He also offered the specimens to the New York Zoological Society (Mole ), where he had established contact with Raymond Ditmars (Ditmars b).

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Since his final collaboration with Urich on a paper in , Mole had not published any noteworthy findings for many years, until requested by the Agricultural Society of Trinidad to contribute to a catalogue of the fauna of Trinidad. In this paper, though he included several of the old, incorrect listings from earlier papers, Mole (a) added to the numbers of species found in Trinidad. (To Typhlops, previously only referred to by its generic name, he appended the species, reticulatus.) Typhlops reticulatus = Typhlops brongersmianus

New to Trinidad were: Hydrops triangularis = Hydrops triangularis neglectus Trypanurgus compressus = Tripanurgos compressus

Barbour (b), realizing that the catalogue of the snakes found on Tobago had not been consolidated, attempted to pull together the previous references and listed the following new records: Epicrates cenchris = Epicrates cenchria maurus Drymarchon corais = Drymarchon corais corais Atractus trilineatus Leptodeira annulata = Leptodeira annulata ashmeadi

Mole sent a collection of reptiles to the British Museum, having admitted in a letter to Boulenger dated April , , that he was unable to identify several snakes in his collection. Recorded in the museum’s acquisition register for  is the identification of yet another new snake for Trinidad, sent by Mole, called Oxyrhopus petolarius (= Oxyrhopus petola petola). The foregoing careful cataloguing of the discovery, identification, and history of the snakes found on Trinidad and on Tobago has been arrived at by the eliminating of erroneous records, synonymies, taxa, and duplicate listings. It is not surprising that the number thought to occur on Trinidad at that date, , was reflected as thirty-seven in the Handbook of Trinidad and Tobago, published in . Mole continued gathering information from his contacts in the United Kingdom and United States as well as making observations on his and other snake collections, like those of O’Reilly, while he was preparing his major work, “The Trinidad Snakes.” He sent it off to Boulenger in late , and it was published in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London in . In this work, Mole claimed that he had recorded thirty-eight snakes for Trinidad, having not seen personally only three species. Two of these were valid records for Trinidad—

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Typhlops and Lycognathus (= Siphlophis)—and the third was an impossibility, since Boa diviniloqua was a species from the island of Dominica, included in error on the Trinidadian list since Boulenger’s () Catalogue. Mole also listed three species of Phrynonax (= Pseustes), when in fact there were only two, and he had omitted Anilius. Also listed in error was the second species of Pseudoboa (called Oxyrhopus coronatus by Mole), a species found in Venezuela and not Trinidad, and of course the second species of Chironius—multiventris—was lost when the variety macrophthalmus was dropped from the  additions done by Urich and himself (Mole and Urich ). Mole’s association with the newspapers and his success in journalism allowed him space to publish further. In  he began to write almost weekly articles on the fauna of Trinidad in the Sunday edition of the Port of Spain Gazette newspaper, culminating in  in an enlarged version of his  paper, called this time “The Snakes of Trinidad,” in which the taxonomy of the previous work remained essentially the same. However, he added one more species that had come to light in June , which he had sent to H. W. Parker at the British Museum for identification. Though Mole tentatively called this new addition Sibynomorphus, Parker () described it as a new species for Trinidad—Dipsas trinitatis (= Dipsas variegata trinitatis). Mole’s dream—the dream of every naturalist—had been to find something new. To have this species named after his adopted home must have been gratifying, though whether he ever received a copy of the paper describing and naming it, or was informed of Parker’s identification, which was dated August , is uncertain. Mole died as a result of a freak accident on October , , when his hammock support broke. Crashing head first to the tiled veranda floor, he suffered fatal injuries. The golden age of discovery in the study of the snakes of Trinidad and Tobago was virtually over with the death of R. R. Mole.

Modern Work, 1926–97 Visiting and resident naturalists and zoologists continued to make collections, these being sent as usual to museums in Europe or the United States, depending on the nationality and connections of the collectors. Dr. Hans W. G. Kugler, a geologist (and E. Lehner, the man who had discovered the specimen of Dipsas, and who, through Mole, sent specimens to the United Kingdom), sent specimens to the museum in Basel, Switzerland. These specimens, representing no new records but covering eighteen species already recorded for Trinidad, were listed by Jean Roux (). By , the urge to subdivide and divide again into subspecies, based on locally distinct characteristics, impelled Afranio do Amaral to look at the Trinidad

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specimens lodged in two U.S. museums. He determined that the specimens of coral snake in Trinidad, then considered Micrurus corallinus, belonged to a subspecies, Riesei (sic) (= Micrurus circinalis), and that those listed as Micrurus marcgravii for Trinidad were in fact the same as Micrurus lemniscatus (Amaral a). Raymond Ditmars had been publishing both scientific and popular papers and books since the first decade of the twentieth century. This surely led to the first tentative contacts made by Mole with this popular and influential member of the New York Zoological Society. Through mutual interest in natural history, especially in snakes, Mole had also met a young man who would become his understudy and would carry on after Mole’s untimely death—Ludolph Wehekind. Born in Trinidad in , he must have begun to dabble in natural history at a young age. His father, V. L. Wehekind, is included in the members’ list of the third annual report of the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club for  but not thereafter, as his young family took up most of his time. He died in , leaving Ludolph, an only son. Though untrained, Ludolph was a born naturalist. He worked as a hydrologist and fish collector in Trinidad for the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia, and his interest in reptiles was fired by his association with Mole. When Mole died in , Wehekind inherited the mantle of resident “snake man,” the first Trinidad-born person to take it on. He inherited much of Mole’s library and the contacts with reptile personages in the United Kingdom and United States. Wehekind reestablished contact in  with Mole’s old partner F. W. Urich, with whom he worked, studying the role that vampire bats played in the spread of paralytic rabies (Field Naturalists’ Club ; de Verteuil ). These activities, and his previous experience, encouraged Raymond Ditmars and two colleagues—writer William Bridges and naturalist Arthur Greenhall— to plan an expedition to Trinidad, to see firsthand all the things that letters from Mole, Urich, and Wehekind could not adequately describe. When they arrived in Trinidad, they naturally were in contact with both Wehekind and Urich, and their adventures—catching and collecting snakes, among other things—were related in Snake Hunters’ Holiday (Ditmars and Bridges ). Amaral, continuing his research, published in  his reference list of the snakes of the neotropical region, occasionally including references to Trinidad and Tobago, which some scientists of the time saw as West Indian or Caribbean islands although their fauna made them more part of South America than of the Antilles (Amaral a). Amaral listed thirty-two species for Trinidad, with some of the usual incorrect inclusions as his compilation was mainly based on former incorrect taxonomic lists. The most glaring of these errors were the retention for Trinidad of the species of Boa constrictor, which occurs on the island of Dominica, and which he lists as subspecies orophias (it having been consid-

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ered the junior synonym—and the same species as the one occurring on the island of St. Lucia) and of Pseudoboa coronata, which does not occur on Trinidad. For Tobago, he lists only six species, and he perpetuates the listing of Bothrops, calling it atrox, based on the opinion of that time that the Antillean specimens from Martinique and St. Lucia and the ones from Trinidad and the South American mainland were virtually indistinguishable. In , Stuart, considering the genus Eudryas (= Mastigodryas) deduced that the form found on Tobago was a separate and distinct species—dunni, known as Drymobius boddaerti since  (Mole a). Redefinition of this snake into a full new species did not alter the total number of snakes recorded from Tobago at the time. The species from Trinidad was designated as a nominate subspecies—Eudryas b. boddaerti (= Mastigodryas b. boddaerti). In  a report appeared in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper in the “Talk of Trinidad,” under the nom de plume “Hummingbird,” telling of a markswoman, one Mrs. Whiteley, shooting two “Mango Snakes” out of a tree in Tobago. From the description of these snakes, both before and after they were shot, and though there was no scientific identification of them, it appears that they might have been cascabel dormillons—Corallus ruschenbergerii—a new record for Tobago, despite Mertens’s belated claim of a first recording in  (Mertens b). Frederick Ober’s mislabeling of specimens from other West Indian islands as coming from Tobago caused Stuart () to consider one specimen of Eudryas (= Mastigodryas) to be designated a new species—E. amarali. Tuck and Hardy () effectively shot this down, along with other taxonomic errors perpetuated by the mislabeling. Joseph Bailey () tried to make a case for the form on Tobago of Pseudoboa neuwiedii to be considered a subspecies—euphaea—but to date no further work has been done to verify if the form on Tobago, which is said to have a greater number of subcaudals than the form on Trinidad and the mainland of South America, is a separate species. Though Klauber () described a new species of worm snake for Trinidad, Hoogmoed and Gruber () stated that this was nothing new and stabilized the old name of Leptotyphlops albifrons. The search for new species and subspecies was on, and island races were fair game. Trinidad’s old Dendrophis Aurata (Court ) became Leptophis coeruleodorsus, a new species, according to Oliver (). But this really added no new players to the list of snakes on Trinidad; it merely reshuffled the names, a game many scientists seem to love. The establishment of tropical stations from which to conduct research had been a popular practice of the New York Zoological Society. They had had stations set up in Venezuela since  and in British Guiana since . Even during the World War II years, –, William Beebe continued to work in these areas and to publish papers on reptiles, notably his paper on the snakes of Kartabo in British Guiana and Caripito in Venezuela (Beebe ). The species described

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in this work, and their habits, were similar to the ones that occurred or could be expected to be observed on Trinidad. Beebe listed several species as occurring on Trinidad as well, making the same error as some previous authors in listing Bothrops atrox from Tobago and not Trinidad! In  Benjamin Shreve, describing a new species of the genus Leptodeira from Venezuela, lumped a specimen in the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sent there from Trinidad by C. S. Cazabon, with the Venezuelan ones; for a while it looked as if the Leptodeira on Trinidad, long known as L. annulata, would become L. rhombifera kugleri. However, Duellman () settled it safely back into annulata, while concluding that the form found both on Trinidad and on Tobago warranted subspecific status, calling it L. a. ashmeadi. Oliver () once more changed not only the species designation of Leptophis— he decided the species was now richardi and coeruleodorsus, a subspecies, on Trinidad and on Tobago—but the genus, which was now to be Thalerophis. Oliver also finally identified the one small, obscure specimen collected by Ivan T. Sanderson from the top of El Cerro del Aripo in ; it was a new record—the first in many years—T. riveti (= Leptophis stimsoni). It seemed that this taxonomic juggling was designed to confuse even the most ardent researcher or snake fancier on Trinidad who wanted to know the correct “scientific” name for the snakes of the island; and the numbers of species were neither increasing nor decreasing. The relegation to subspecies status of island forms continued when James Peters (a) described what was thought at first to be an endemic to Trinidad, Dipsas trinitatus, as a subspecies of D. variegata, by which taxon it is known—unless it is changed further, as is anticipated when Chris Kofron completes his review of the genus (Murphy, pers. comm., ; Murphy ). By  William Beebe had moved into the New York Zoological Society’s research station at Simla, in the Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley, and he continued his prolific publication of articles and papers, as was his habit throughout his rich and varied life as a zoologist and naturalist. Important in the history of the zoological record of Trinidad was his attempt to catalogue the fauna of the ArimaBlanchisseuse Valley, in which catalogue he listed the snakes he had presumably seen or collected in and around Simla and Spring Hill Estate, higher up the valley from Simla. In this list there are no surprises or additions bar one, which is difficult to explain. Beebe was a careful and meticulous cataloguer, and the scientific names he used to list the snakes he collected or observed were the most current ones he was aware of at that time. Yet, appearing for the first time on any list was Oxybelis fulgidus. This snake, fairly common at Kartabo in British Guiana and familiar to Beebe, does not exist on Trinidad. At one time it could have been considered an integral part of Trinidad’s fauna: Patos Island, where

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Oxybelis fulgidus had been collected (Mole ), was under the Trinidad colonial government’s jurisdiction until , when Patos was handed back to Venezuela. I remember seeing several preserved specimens in the collection of the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, which may have been the ones collected by Urich on Patos (Mole ) and which may have been included incidentally by Beebe, perhaps mistaking the label “Patos” for “St. Pat’s Village,” just down the hill from Simla. Beebe stated () that the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture (now the University of the West Indies) had “placed its library, study collections and other facilities at our disposal” (p. ). In any event, whatever caused this error, Oxybelis fulgidus has never been collected on Trinidad since Beebe included it on his list. It was possibly this inclusion by Beebe, and his unquestionable status, that impelled James Oliver (n.d.) to include this species in his first Key to the Snakes of Trinidad. The date of this key is uncertain but probably before about , and O. fulgidus is included as if it is a commonly met species on Trinidad. However, in the second version of Oliver’s Key, dated , it is noted that this species is from Patos Island. In the first key, Oliver retains the usual incorrect inclusions—Boa orophias, Pseudoboa coronatus—and in the second version he also retains Micrurus marcgravi. However, the really amazing feature of both keys is that he lists for the first time since Court (in de Verteuil ) Anilius scytale. By this time (), Oliver had himself identified the Sanderson specimen from Mount Aripo as Thalerophis riveti (= Leptophis stimsoni) and he duly included it in this key. Also included, in the  version with the post- Aitken modifications, is a new species which Oliver tells us is Erythrolamprus aesculapii (= E. bizona), based on a specimen caught in Diego Martin on November , , and identified by Karl Schmidt of the Field Museum of Natural History (then known as the Chicago Natural History Museum). Schmidt never published anything concerning this new record for Trinidad; he merely identified the specimen sent to him—possibly in a batch of “true” coral snakes on which he was working to sort out the puzzle of which species were found on Trinidad (Schmidt )—affixed a label to the specimen, and returned it to the Royal Victoria Institute Museum, to Arthur Greenhall, who was working there as the ex-officio curator, along with Ludolph Wehekind. Schmidt, however, did publish a photo of this specimen (:). Thus Oliver’s unpublished key () with the post- Aitken modifications is the first record of this genus, Erythrolamprus, though the Diego Martin specimen, long considered and listed as E. aesculapii, is in fact E. bizona (Hardy and Boos ). What Oliver did not include in his key, and nor did he tell Aitken this for the post- modifications or state it in any subsequent publication, was that he had collected a second specimen of Erythrolamprus, in St. Pat’s Village near Simla, on April , ,

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this time a “true” aesculapii (housed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, AMNH ), thus unknowingly increasing further the number of species of snakes found on Trinidad. It is no wonder that Ludolph Wehekind, in trying to make a working list () of the extant species in Trinidad, was a little confused. Though he had his list corrected by H. W. Parker of the British Museum, and rechecked by Beebe and himself with Oliver’s list (), there were still a few omissions and errors, and he too retains Boa diviniloqua, Oxybelis fulgidus, and the two species of Phrynonax (= Pseustes), fasciatus and eutropis, both of which are now recognized as one and the same, Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis. But Wehekind too listed Anilius scytale, following Oliver (n.d., ). This  working list of Wehekind’s, which exists only as hand-copied pages, was perhaps either an extension of or a prelude to his first major publication, following in the steps of Mole and Ditmars, “Notes on the Foods of the Trinidad Snakes,” though in this list of snakes and their foods (), he retained Anilius and referred to the Beebe () findings from Guyana. The questionable species he omitted, notably Boa diviniloqua or orophias. Instead of Phrynonax, Wehekind for the first time used the trinomial by which the snake has since been known—Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis. Although Wehekind’s taxonomy—somewhat archaic, coming from the backwater of Trinidad—was obviously checked by whatever referees were on tap for the British Herpetological Society in London, and Wehekind also credits William Beebe with some input, he still included the nonexistent species Pseudoboa coronata and Oxybelis fulgidus. Nonetheless, this paper of Wehekind’s pulled together the knowledge available on the food and eating preferences of Trinidad snakes (most of which are also found in South America); gave any ardent snake enthusiast a start in understanding some of the habits of snakes in general; and set a direction for the total reporting of their natural history and habits in the future. The problem of which species or subspecies were found on Trinidad was being addressed, and Burger () described the form of coral snake found in Trinidad, eastern Venezuela, and British Guiana, the type specimen being from Tunapuna township to the east of Port of Spain, as Micrurus lemniscatus diutius. Though Roze () accepted this new designation, he maintained that the smaller species of coral snake was still Micrurus circinalis. In an attempt to update their earlier list () of “Some Species of Economic and General Interest,” the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture had Arthur Greenhall review the reptile list in  (Herklots and Greenhall ). This he did, correcting taxonomy where necessary, but he still retained the third, but now synonymous, species of coral snake, M. marcgravi. J. A. Roze (), working in Venezuela, revised the snakes of the genus Hydrops and ascertained that the species found in Trinidad and British Guiana was a

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distinct subspecies, which he named H. triangularis neglectus. James Oliver published his popular and seminal Snakes in Fact and Fiction in  and inadvertently crystallized the incorrect record of the world’s largest specimen of Boa constrictor, killed in the Guiaco-Tamana area of Trinidad. It was only a misidentified anaconda after all (Boos ). The  annual report of the Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory (now CAREC) included a catalogue of its snake collection, the taxonomy of which was prepared by Oliver. Obviously aware of the decision of the  International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature, he recorded Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus as the newest and perhaps final form for a snake that seemed to be as mercurial in name as in temperament. Twenty-nine species of snakes were listed here, none new for Trinidad but all collected in eastern Trinidad by the lab staff during the course of their studies on viruses that might have been contained in snakes’ blood. Unidentified, unrecorded, unlabeled, and unrecognized in that same collection must have been the one specimen of Anilius scytale that firms up the present inclusion of this taxon in the list of Trinidad’s snakes in this book. Garth Underwood, professor of zoology in the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of the West Indies, attempted to pull together all the scattered information on the reptiles of the Eastern Caribbean. However, in this process, although this  work (plus the  Supplement) has become an important reference point for any research on the herpetology of the region, the snakes of Trinidad and Tobago were given short shrift, the information about them being reduced to a mere list for each island. For Trinidad he listed thirty-seven species, omitting Leptophis stimsoni, Anilius scytale, Erythrolamprus bizona, and Chironius multiventris but including the incorrect O. fulgidus. Except for these errors, his total equaled exactly the forty-one valid species recorded to that date. For Tobago, Underwood listed fifteen species, exceeding the ones recorded by  by listing Typhlops and Oxybelis fulgidus and omitting Atractus, Leptodeira, and Corallus, thus giving a total of sixteen species of snakes recorded in the literature for Tobago as of that date. As already noted, O. fulgidus is found only in South America and on Patos Island, though Lancini () failed to report that it was collected when a report of the herpetofauna was made for that island in . Though Underwood may have become aware of Typhlops on Tobago, and we can as of  consider it a new record for Tobago, it was not until  (Thomas ) that it was identified as T. trinitatus. Michael Emsley () saw the need to try to straighten out and rationalize the record of the number and names of the snakes recorded in Trinidad. He stated that Typhlops reticulatus should no longer be included. However, this taxon was reidentified as T. brongersmianus (Dixon and Hendricks ) and is thus a valid inclusion under its present name. He argued for the omission of Anilius scytale, but the one specimen now extant, in the CAREC collection, should keep collectors and researchers sensitized to its presence on Trinidad, though it may be ex-

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

tremely rare or a stray from Venezuela. His arguments for the dropping of Boa orophias (= Boa diviniloqua), Pseudoboa coronatus, and Oxybelis fulgidus are valid, and I have already commented on these species when they first appeared incorrectly on the lists. The specimen he lists as Typhlops sp., collected on the ArimaBlanchisseuse Road, has now been identified as T. trinitatus (Richmond ). Emsley (a) relegated the form of Erythrolamprus found exclusively on Tobago—ocellatus (Hardy and Boos )—to subspecific status of the species aesculapii, which at that time was thought to be the species from Trinidad, based on Schmidt’s  identification of the only specimen thought to have been collected there. This specimen, at the Royal Victoria Institute Museum (RVIM ), is now clearly not E. aesculapii but E. bizona, and there is, in fact, a specimen of “true” E. aesculapii (AMNH ). Based on corrected scale counts (Hardy and Boos ), it is more reasonable to consider the Tobago form a full endemic species, E. ocellatus, although Murphy () points out that this is not supported by scale count data and other external morphology, other than pattern as noted by Roze (), Dixon and Soini (), and Lancini (). In the mid-s, the members of the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club embarked on a project to attempt to publish for popular use booklets on all the fauna of Trinidad and Tobago. Individual authors went on to publish larger monographs on their own, covering the birds and the butterflies. Only the booklet on the reptiles (Boos and Quesnel ) was ever completed, the first of its kind in Trinidad and Tobago. Illustrated almost entirely in color, it featured fifteen photos and included accounts of the commonest of the well-known snakes and all the venomous ones. The balance of the booklet, produced to be given away to schools, covered nine lizards, four turtles and tortoises, one caiman, and six amphibians. Out of print today, and almost totally unavailable, this little booklet was responsible for a considerable widening of knowledge about and interest in the herpetofauna of Trinidad and Tobago. Almost simultaneously, in the  edition of Alford’s ever popular The Island of Tobago was published “Notes on the Snakes and Lizards of Tobago” by J. P. de Verteuil (b), who quoted liberally from Wehekind’s (a) unpublished paper on the snakes of Trinidad and from Underwood (), mainly using the taxonomy they both had used. De Verteuil’s compilation (a, b) gives no new records but lists the sixteen species believed at that time to occur on Tobago. He had a keen interest in snakes, having worked in the Middle East in the early s as a petroleum engineer with the Anglo-Persian Company (de Verteuil ). He collected the local snakes and kept copious notes on them, identifying them through correspondence with Doctors Frank March and Norman L. Corkill and with the aid of the latter’s small book Snakes and Snake Bite in Iraq (). There is a photograph (de Verteuil :) of J. P. de Verteuil, holding a rather thick-bodied snake, while stationed in New Guinea during his service in the Royal Australian Air Force.

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Interest in the herpetology of Tobago was sufficient to attract one of the then most famous herpetologists in the world to this tiny island. Robert Mertens of the Senckenberg Natural History Museum in Frankfurt—the same museum to which Mole and Urich had sent specimens and where they had sought advice from Boettger at the close of the nineteenth century—visited Tobago repeatedly in his declining years of retirement. Mertens published a series of papers (, , , a, b, ) on the reptiles of Tobago. The s and s were exciting decades for herpetology in Trinidad and Tobago. Nearly all the old snake men had died. Mole and Urich were gone and only Wehekind was hanging on, half blind but still hoping to see the species that were listed in Mole’s manuscripts and published papers. He misidentified a specimen of Ninia atrata, his first and mine, as a juvenile Clelia clelia, neither of us knowing at the time that the Clelia juvenile is bright cherry red and not dull black, like the tiny adult Ninia. Visiting Wehekind in , I met Arthur Greenhall for the first time. He identified the species and witnessed my first snakebite, from a rainbow boa, a result of my inexperienced attempt to handle it and my assumption that being nonvenomous, it would not bite. But things were looking up. Despite Wehekind’s death on October , , there were herpetologists in influential places. “Jake” Kenny was researching the amphibians, ably assisted by Victor Quesnel. Garth Underwood was in the chair of the Department of Zoology at the University of the West Indies, collecting material for his Reptiles of the Eastern Caribbean; George Gorman was doing his first degree at the university, studying the relationships of the anolis lizards, assisted by Richard Ross (then a graduate medical student) and in the field by my brother Julius Boos and me. It was an exciting time. Publications flowed from the research and from observations made by several workers in the field. James Lazell passed through, also studying lizards and the relationships of Boa and Bothrops with the forms found in St. Lucia, Dominica, and Martinique (Lazell ). Frederico Medem, an expert on crocodiles, passed through, and, assisted in the field by my brother Julius, collected the necessary data and later published his seminal work on South American crocodilians (Medem ). Though few new finds were forthcoming, information about the familiar species was published (Boos b, c), and new locality records were established, especially on the small islands dotting the passage separating Trinidad from Venezuela and off eastern Tobago (Manuel ; Boos ; Dinsmore ). In  the monumental Catalogue of the Neotropical Squamata, Part : Snakes (Peters and Orejas-Miranda) was published, Trinidad and Tobago being considered in some species accounts as offshore neotropical islands. There was no attempt to give a comprehensive or updated catalogue of squamate herpetofauna for the two islands. Several rearrangements of species and subspecies for both islands were proposed in this work; some are valid, some incorrect, and some have since been

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

changed. Chironius multiventris was not listed for Trinidad. Dipsas variegata trinitatis was listed as an endemic to Trinidad. Erythrolamprus aesculapii ocellatus was listed as occurring on both Trinidad and Tobago. Leptotyphlops goudotii goudotii was considered a “new combination” for the species in Trinidad, and Leptotyphlops tenella was listed as a second species for Trinidad. Mastigodryas replaced Drymobius as a result of a “new combination,” M. boddaerti boddaerti being found in Trinidad, M. b. dunni on Tobago, with the enigmatic M. amarali still being retained for Tobago. Based on Roze (), the smaller species of coral snake was now listed as Micrurus psyches circinalis. There was one mysterious, unexplained inclusion for Trinidad—Typhlophis squamosus. Though I have examined the references quoted for some clue to the inclusion of Trinidad in the distribution of this taxon, I have been unable to unravel this mystery (Behler ), which may be a printer’s error. Typhlops trinitatus was listed as an endemic to Trinidad, but it has since been collected on Tobago (Thomas ; Hardy ). The avalanche of papers continued, little new being discovered; there was a reshuffling of genera, and some species were assigned to synonymy. Old Typhlops reticulatus was suppressed by Vanzolini in favor of T. brongersmianus (, ). Mertens () published an up-to-date listing of Tobago’s snakes, exceeding the known numbers at that time by three “new” records. Leptotyphlops albifrons was listed, solely due to an arbitrary earlier inclusion by de Verteuil (a, b). Imantodes cenchoa had been listed by de Verteuil (a, b) and confirmed by Mertens (); he collected a specimen of Oxyrhopus petola himself, and for some unexplained reason—perhaps that Underwood listed it ()—he also included the Patos snake, Oxybelis fulgidus. Mertens (b), upon receiving a specimen of Corallus ruschenbergii from Julius Boos, published a note claiming it to be a new record, oblivious to a report of this species (if not by its scientific name) forty years earlier (Hummingbird ). The “Check List of Trinidad Snakes” (Boos a) mainly used what limited information was available in Trinidad at that time and relied heavily on Peters and Orejas-Miranda (), which explains why Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni, a Tobago subspecies, was listed for Trinidad instead of M. b. boddaerti. I was also unaware then of the new designation of Typhlops reticulatus as T. brongersmianus. In  Paul Greenhall, son of Arthur Greenhall, published a listing of fortytwo snakes and legless lizards from Trinidad, once more perpetuating the taxonomic errors of the past. Included were Oxybelis fulgidus, Typhlops reticulatus, and both Leptotyphlops tenella and L. goudotii as well as the two species of legless lizards, Amphisbaena alba and A. fuliginosa. Omitted were Typhlops brongersmianus and Leptotyphlops albifrons. Maclean et al. () did little better, quoting from Peters and Orejas-Miranda () and also perpetuating the errors mentioned. Emsley () attempted to gather all the scattered pieces of information and straighten out once and for all exactly what was extant on Trinidad and on To-

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bago. He too, unfortunately, retained Typhlops reticulatus and Leptotyphlops tenella for Trinidad and Typhlops lehneri (a species previously only suggested) instead of T. trinitatus and Leptotyphlops tenella (entirely upon Mertens’s  say-so) for Tobago. Ninia atrata was added to the list of Tobago species without any explanation, and Atractus, Leptodeira, Oxybelis, Sibon, and Tantilla were added for the Trinidad offshore island of Huevos without voucher specimens for reference or records of collection there (Emsley, pers. comm., ; Boos b). Emsley also recorded Liophis cobella, adding a new record for Tobago, which has not since been substantiated. Though Emsley () had previously argued for the exclusion of Anilius scytale from the Trinidad list, he allowed that it might turn up, which in fact it did (see species account). In the “Biological Notes and Descriptions,” almost as a footnote, Emsley () still hopefully included Oxybelis fulgidus and Pseudoboa coronatus, species on which he had argued for exclusion in . He excluded Pseudoboa guerini. This work by Emsley was intended to supply much needed information on all the snakes of Trinidad and of Tobago. However, published as it was by the Maryland Herpetological Society, its availability to the wider public in Trinidad and Tobago, and the world, was limited. Limited too was a doctoral dissertation by John Alton Wiest, Jr., who, looking at as many specimens of Chironius as he could lay his hands on, realized that in Trinidad there were two or perhaps three forms, separate species of Chironius. The second, differing in scalation from the well-known C. carinatus, was C. multiventris septentrionalis, perhaps the old macrophthalmus variety of C. carinatus (Mole and Urich a, ); there is no indication that Wiest searched out and found the four or more specimens sent to and identified by O. Boettger at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt in the closing years of the previous century. Wiest’s dissertation has been expanded and published (Dixon et al. ), with no alterations to the conclusions about the species found on Trinidad. Sometime around  one C. G. Alleyne compiled a typescript titled “Notes on the Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago,” without making the distinction that in many aspects the herpetofauna of Tobago is different from that of Trinidad. (Who he was remains a mystery; perhaps he was a schoolmaster at St. Peter’s School in Pointe-a-Pierre, then owned by Texaco Trinidad Inc.) Listed are thirty-eight species for both islands, including once more the Patos snake, Oxybelis fulgidus. There are no further clues as to why Alleyne wrote this series of notes, as his work is confined to a single typewritten manuscript, now privately owned. Hardy (), in his preparation for his later work on Tobago (), listed the snake fauna of Tobago, relying almost entirely on Emsley (). In his work on Tobago, taking an objective view of the list of reptiles reported to date from that island and able to find no recorded specimen of Leptotyphlops, Hardy ()

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

suggested that this genus should be included only provisionally, until actual voucher specimens were either freshly collected or found in a museum. He also discovered that all the specimens of Clelia clelia recorded for that island were in fact Pseudoboa neuwiedii. The Liophis cobella (= L. cobellus) record (Emsley ) was called into question as well, as no museum specimens were found. Added for Tobago were Atractus cf. univittatus and Liophis sp.—this latter specimen was assigned undescribed subspecific status of L. reginae by Dixon (:) and accepted by Murphy (). John Murphy (), in a lecture on the zoogeography of Trinidad’s herpetofauna, gave a fairly accurate tally of Trinidad’s snakes to that date, except for a couple of excusable taxonomic errors in the Typhlopidae and Leptotyphlopidae and omissions of Anilius, Erythrolamprus bizona, Chironius multiventris, and Leptophis stimsoni. Thus it was that in the early s the taxonomic list of the snakes on Trinidad and on Tobago seemed to reflect the roll call of what was on these two islands. Some records were hidden in obscure literature or buried in bottles on the shelves of museums and in private collections, unexamined for years. Though there was no systematic gathering together of the far-flung records into one truly comprehensive composite work, they were there, waiting for any diligent and inquisitive searcher. Then, on October , , an expedition by members of the staff of the Emperor Valley Zoo, collecting fish in the streams of the southwest peninsula of Trinidad, picked up a crushed snake specimen on the asphalt road near the Chatham junction. I did not recognize it as anything I had ever seen, so I photographed the mangled specimen, preserved it, and sent it off to the British Museum for Andrew Stimson to identify. Back came his identification later that same month, stating that it was a species of Thamnodynastes, possibly strigatus, new for Trinidad. A second specimen was collected in July of , and a third on April , , both crushed, dead on the road between Point Fortin and Icacos. The second specimen, collected by John Murphy, was lodged in the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH ), and the third, collected by John Seyjagat, was sent to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH ). All three specimens were subsequently forwarded to J. Bailey for definitive determination (see Thamnodynastes account). I reported the occurrence of this new record for Trinidad (Boos c), and Murphy () lists it as Thamnodynastes sp. Dixon (b), meanwhile, was considering the systematics of the species Liophis reginae—the high woods coral—taking into consideration the single, strangely patterned specimen that Hardy () had noted for Tobago. Dixon determined that the forms found on Trinidad and on Tobago were worthy of subspecific identity and assigned them to the subspecies zweifeli. In an “Evaluation and Development of Wildlife Resources” (Boos a), an attempt was made to compile a definitive list of the reptiles known to exist in

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Trinidad and on Tobago. This list is flawed by the usual omissions of unknown records—Anilius, Erythrolamprus, Chironius; incorrect assignment of records to either Trinidad or Tobago; repeating of taxonomic errors or misassignment of species and subspecies—(Mastigodryas amarali for Tobago, M. boddaerti dunni for Trinidad); and lack of exact assignment to or exclusion from either island for some species. The updated version (Boos a) did nothing to address these errors or correct them. Fortunately, the two lists were neither widely circulated nor readily available. During a trip to the Cumaca Cave in the Northern Range, Sanderson’s  collecting record of the enigmatic Leptophis riveti (= L. stimsoni) was verified by the taking of a second specimen (Boos b). A third specimen collected two weeks later by Graham White confirmed finally the presence of this rare snake on Trinidad. Two other specimens have since been sighted by Peter Dickson, who, having seen color photographs of the two previously collected specimens, is certain of his identification. These specimens were not collected. But there was one more surprise to come. What was at first thought to be merely another specimen of the ground puppy, Leptotyphlops albifrons, collected by Peter Dickson in loose soil and leaf litter on the Lalaja Road in the Northern Range, turned out to be an as yet unidentified species of a new genus for Trinidad—Helminthophis (Wynn ). With this new, but hopefully not final, addition to the list, the species of snakes found so far on Trinidad (with one record, Chironius scurrulus, somewhat in doubt) number forty-four, slightly more than double the twenty-one recorded for Tobago. John Murphy () gives a fairly accurate list, omitting Chironius multiventris septentrionalis and C. scurrulus (doubtful), Anilius scytale, and Erythrolamprus bizona from the Trinidad roll and retaining Liophis cobella and L. reginae sp. as a perhaps distinct form for Tobago. In  the long-standing name for the cascabel dormillon—Corallus enydris— was changed to C. hortulanus (McDiarmid et al. ), and Trinidad and Tobago were erroneously included in the range where Phimophis guianensis is found (York ). Based on DNA, scale counts, size, distribution, color and pattern, Robert Henderson () split C. hortulanus into four distinct species, C. ruschenbergerii being found on Trinidad and on Tobago. Murphy () produced the detailed Amphibians and Reptiles of Trinidad and Tobago. Omitted from it, however, are the snakes Anilius scytale and Chironius multiventris, which are covered by the present work. In  Rapid Environmental Assessment Limited (REAL) made a survey of Chacachacare Island and three genera of snakes were recorded; Chironius, Clelia, and Epicrates. The first two are misidentifications of Mastigodryas and Pseudoboa, and the third will have to be verified. Oxybelis aeneus and Pseudoboa neuwiedii were reported from Chacachacare Island (Hall et al. ).

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

In this introduction tracing the development of knowledge about the snakes of Trinidad and Tobago, the two islands are seen to possess mainly South American snakes but also to have a few endemics, species and subspecies (Erythrolamprus ocellatus, Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni, and perhaps a subspecies of Liophis reginae on Tobago; Dipsas variegata trinitatis and Leptophis stimsoni on Trinidad) and to have several enigmatic relicts, recent arrivals, or extremely rare species. I hope that with this book, the often-heard excuse for killing snakes—“I didn’t know if it was poisonous”—will be less frequently heard. I hope also to inspire a younger crop of men and women to find out more about our beautiful snake fauna, to unravel the remaining mysteries, and to illuminate the dark corners of ignorance. Without such efforts, the rich fauna of our twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago has little or no chance of survival. Island refuges are important repositories of genetic diversity. We would be an impoverished people were our snakes—abhorred, feared, and misunderstood as they may be—to disappear forever from our forests, mountains, swamps, islands, and gardens.

Taxonomy and Species Accounts

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Taxonomy and Species Accounts

As of this writing, there are a total of forty-seven species of snakes in the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago, there being forty-four in Trinidad and twenty-one in Tobago, three of which are unique to that island, Atractus cf. univittatus, Erythrolamprus ocellatus, and Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni. The strange color morph of Liophis reginae found there may yet prove to be unique as well. The chart gives a breakdown of the species found and known to occur on each island. On Trinidad there are still several mysteries to be solved and species determinations to be made. The Typhlopid snake Helminthophis, of which taxon only one specimen has ever been caught, despite an expedition from the Smithsonian Institution to search for it in the habitat where it was collected, has still not been described as being unique to Trinidad or only a range extension for the Venezuelan species; Anilius scytale scytale is represented by a single specimen without a definite but highly circumstantial collection locale; one specimen each of two distinct species of Erythrolamprus, bizona and aesculapii, collected over forty years ago represent the only records for these species; what is the final determination and publication of the description of Thamnodynastes from the southern peninsula; it must be determined if the species of Dipsas is a good species or will remain a subspecies; the questionable occurrence in Trinidad of Chironius scurrulus, which is based on a single specimen, must be settled; are the color forms of Mastigodryas found on the off-shore islands of Huevos and Chacachacare a different and distinct species, or do they bear affinities to Venezuela rather than to Trinidad; and finally, what is the correct name for the Bothrops found here? Is it asper or the old familiar atrox? Perhaps DNA work now being considered or in progress will have some of the answers.

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

Of the forty-seven kinds of snakes found in Trinidad and Tobago it is unlikely that people will ever encounter very many of them except the few species that tend to be able to live near and around human habitation. People who go into the bush for recreation or have employment there will naturally tend to encounter them more often. Numerically, the nonvenomous outnumber the dangerous ones forty-three to four, the four that are potentially dangerous to people being the two viperids (the Mapepires), Bothrops atrox, responsible for the majority of bites recorded, and Lachesis muta, and the two species of coral snakes, Micrurus circinalis and M. lemniscatus diutius. All four of these snakes are easily recognized, having unique color patterns that distinguish them from the other nonvenomous ones. It is true there are several harmless species that tend to mimic the dangerous ones, but it is hoped that with this book the tendency to misidentify the innocuous with the potentially dangerous will be addressed and perhaps someday halt the slaughter of the snakes of Trinidad and Tobago. serpentes (snakes) Family: Leptotyphlopidae Genus: Leptotyphlops Leptotyphlops albifrons Family: Typhlopidae Genus: Helminthophis Helminthophis sp. Genus: Typhlops Typhlops brongersmianus Typhlops trinitatus Family: Aniliidae Genus: Anilius Anilius scytale scytale Family: Boidae Genus: Boa Boa constrictor constrictor Genus: Corallus Corallus ruschenbergerii Genus: Epicrates Epicrates cenchria maurus Genus: Eunectes Eunectes murinus gigas Family: Colubridae Subfamily: Xenodontinae. Genus: Clelia

trinidad

tobago

X

X X X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

Taxonomy and Species Accounts

Clelia clelia clelia Genus: Erythrolamprus Erythrolamprus aesculapii Erythrolamprus bizona Erythrolamprus ocellatus Genus: Helicops Helicops angulatus Genus: Hydrops Hydrops triangularis neglectus Genus: Liophis Liophis cobellus cobellus Liophis melanotus nesos Liophis reginae zweifeli Genus: Oxyrhopus Oxyrhopus petola petola Genus: Pseudoboa Pseudoboa neuwiedii Genus: Siphlophis Siphlophis cervinus Genus: Thamnodynastes Thamnodynastes sp. Genus: Tripanurgos Tripanurgos compressus Subfamily: Dipsadinae Genus: Atractus Atractus trilineatus Atractus cf. univittatus Genus: Dipsas Dipsas variegata trinitatis Genus: Imantodes Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa Genus: Leptodeira Leptodeira annulata ashmeadi Genus: Ninia Ninia atrata Genus: Sibon Sibon nebulata nebulata Subfamily: Colubrinae Genus: Chironius Chironius carinatus carinatus Chironius

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serpentes (snakes)

trinidad

multiventris septentrionalis Chironius scurrulus Genus: Drymarchon Drymarchon corais corais Genus: Leptophis Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus Leptophis stimsoni Genus: Mastigodryas Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni Genus: Oxybelis Oxybelis aeneus Genus: Pseustes Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus Genus: Spilotes Spilotes pullatus pullatus Genus: Tantilla Tantilla melanocephala Family: Elapidae Genus: Micrurus Micrurus lemniscatus diutius Micrurus circinalis Family: Viperidae Genus: Bothrops Bothrops atrox Genus: Lachesis Lachesis muta muta Totals

tobago

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X X 



Family: Leptotyphlopidae—Thread Snakes Leptotyphlopidae Stejneger 1891 This family of very small, thin, wormlike burrowing snakes is found in Mexico and southward throughout Latin America, in the Antilles, Europe, Asia, Africa,

Taxonomy and Species Accounts

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and Australia, and on many islands in the Pacific. Members are found on Trinidad. Often collected after heavy rains, these small snakes are easily mistaken for earthworms. They are seldom longer than – cm, and there is no distinct narrowing in the neck area. A sharp terminal spine in the tail supports the erroneous belief that these snakes have a venomous sting. They are insect eaters and are often collected in termite nests and mounds. They are known to lay up to four elongate eggs. Genus: Leptotyphlops Fitzinger Leptotyphlops Fitzinger  Leptotyphlops albifrons (Wagler ) Ground Puppy          : TRINIDAD—NMBE (Roux ); CM - (Mt. St. Benedict),  (El Dorado) (Klauber ); RT , Arima (Thomas ); USNM  (Maraval),  (Diego Martin),  (Mt. Bleu, Arima) (Wynn ).            (fig. ): In Trinidad and Guyana specimens, supraoculars are in contact with anterior supralabials, separating the nasals from the oculars. Elsewhere in range, condition is variable. Body is cylindrical, with head slightly flattened and wider than the neck; a terminal spine is present on the tail. There is a white or dirty yellow spot on upper half of rostral and on tip of tail; these spots sometimes appear to be pink (Worth ). Body is shiny black or dark brown with a series of lighter longitudinal lines; belly is lighter brown.      : Trinidad, Guyana, Brazil, northeastern Peru, Venezuela.

Fig. 1. How to count dorsal scale rows

Fig. 2. (right and above right) Typical head scalation of family Leptotyphlopidae. (After Chippaux 1986)

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Fig. 3. Leptotyphlops albifrons, ground puppy. Note spot on the head and the end of the tail, including terminal spine.

         : Ground puppy, yellow-headed worm snake, worm snake, burrowing snake, white-faced worm snake.            : This is a burrowing snake, living in loose leaf litter and soil and in tree-termite nests, where it feeds on the termites (Ditmars ) and other arthropod prey, including millipedes (Wehekind , , a). Beebe () listed Atta ant pupae as food. Individuals are often seen after heavy rains have washed them out of their habitat. The eggs are laid in loose soil. Coral snakes (Wehekind a) and young Bothrops (Rodriguez ) prey on them. Though totally harmless, they are believed to be poisonous. Day () reported the belief that this snake had fangs and said that one “made abortive attempts to bite a stick.” De Verteuil () also thought them to be poisonous, a belief that was still being reported by Mole in . In support of the general belief in Trinidad that all snakes are venomous and dangerous, the sharp terminal tail spine is indicated as a “sting.” This spine probably assists the snake in pulling itself backward as it burrows through the earth. : Hoogmoed and Gruber (:) have argued convincingly that Leptotyphlops tenella, as first described by Klauber (), and subsequently used by many authors (Abuys ; Aitken et al. ; Bacon et al. ; Beebe ; Boos a, a, a; Crombie ; Emsley ; Greenhall ; Hardy ; Hoogmoed ; Lancini , ; Maclean et al. ; Murphy ; Orejas-Miranda ; Quesnel ; Roze ; Schwartz and Henderson , ; Schwartz and Thomas ; Thomas ; Tikasingh ; Townsend and Cole ; Wehekind ; Wynn ) is a junior synonym of the older

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L. albifrons (Wagler ). They conclude that “the correct name for the taxon, widely known since  as L. tenella, actually is L. albifrons (Wagler ).” The name L. albifrons has been used for this worm snake found in Trinidad by other authors over the years, the species albifrons often being placed in different genera. Boulenger () recorded a specimen in the British Museum from Trinidad collected by S. A. Smith. As early as , de Verteuil (p. ) listed Stenostoma albifrons of Dumeril for Trinidad as a possible identification for a small serpent “provided with a sting at the end of the tail.” Others using albifrons are Alleyne (ca. ), Barbour (a), Beebe (), Boettger (), Boos and Quesnel (), Field Naturalists’ Club (b, c), Garman (), Mole (a, a, b, ), Mole and Urich (a, a, b, c, ), Orde (), OrejasMiranda (), Roux (), Rowland-Entwistle (), Roze (), Underwood (), Wehekind (, a, b, c), Wistrel (). De Verteuil (a, b) recorded L. albifrons for Tobago, and Mertens (), quoting him, listed Leptotyphlops spec. inc.; Hardy () listed L. albifrons for Tobago but, due to the lack of any voucher specimens anywhere in , accepted its inclusion for Tobago as provisional. Peters and Orejas-Miranda (), in creating a “new combination” of Leptotyphlops goudotii, listed L. g. goudotii (Duméril and Bibron) as occurring from Panama and Colombia to the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, Trinidad, Bonaire, and Margarita Island. The inclusion of Trinidad is unexplained and unsupported. Several authors follow this listing of goudotii for Trinidad: Boos (a, a, a), Greenhall (), Welch (), Lancini (, ), Wilson and Meyer (). Emsley () gave characteristics for L. goudotii in the event that specimens collected in Trinidad or Tobago did not conform to those of L. tenella (= L. albifrons ), and states that L. goudotii “is known from Patos Island (Venezuela) and may occur on Trinidad.” The specimen upon which this statement is based could not be found in the Department of Zoology collection of the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine, Trinidad (Emsley, pers. comm., ). Emsley also speculated that the specimens may have been in the catalogue of snakes in the British Museum; I have been unable to trace this. Neither the account for Glauconia albifrons nor that for G. goudotii in Boulenger’s Catalogue () lists specimens from Patos Island.

Family: Typhlopidae—Blind Snakes Typhlopidae Jan 1863 This family of small, burrowing, wormlike snakes is found in Mexico and southward throughout Latin America, in the Antilles, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia,

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and on some islands of the Pacific. Three genera make up the family. Two of these have been collected on Trinidad and on Tobago.

Key to the genera of Typhlopidae in Trinidad and Tobago. 1. Frontal scale not in contact with the rostral. Prefrontals in contact. 24 scale rows around the body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Helminthophis 2. Frontal scales in contact with rostral. Prefrontals fused with the upper part of the nasal. 20 scale rows around the body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Typhlops

These burrowing snakes are seldom seen or collected. Maximum size is about  cm. They are cylindrical in shape, the belly scales being similar to the dorsals. There is no narrowing of the body behind the head to indicate a neck, and the tip of the tail is a single sharp scale. In three other families—the Leptotyphlopidae, Colubridae, and Crotalidae—this feature has given rise to the belief that this sharp scale is a venomous sting. Little is known of their natural history except that they are insect eaters, often being found in or near ant and termite nests. Their closely scaled bodies equip them for burrowing and resisting the bites of their prey. They appear to be oviparous.

Fig. 4. Typical head scalation of family Typhlopidae. (After Chippaux 1986)

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Genus: Helminthophis Peters Helminthophis Peters  Helminthophis sp. Yellow-head Ground Puppy : TRINIDAD—USNM , coll. Sept. , , Arima, Lalaja Rd. (Wynn ).  (fig. ): The nasal scale is divided and prefrontals are in contact, separating the frontal from the rostral and supranasal. The body is cylindrical, approximately  cm long, the head indistinguishable from the neck. The eye is under an ocular scale. There are – scale rows around the body, always in even pairs. Belly and dorsal scales are similar. Ground color is light brown, with dirty, lighter yellow on the front of the head to the level of the eyes, a band of lighter yellow on nape, and lighter tip to the tail. : Trinidad, Central America, northern and central South America, Bonaire Island (Roze ).  : (Suggested) Yellow-head ground puppy.  : A burrowing snake probably similar in habits to Typhlops and Leptotyphlops, this snake possibly feeding on termites, ants, and their eggs and larvae. Only one specimen has been collected, by Peter Dickson, in leaf litter on the Lalaja Road in the Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley. Mistaken for a specimen of Leptotyphlops, it was subsequently identified as a new record for Trinidad, adding the genus Helminthophis, though a determination as to which taxon it should be assigned is yet to be made. Presently three species are recognized (Peters and Orejas-Miranda ): Helminthophis flavoterminatus from northern Venezuela, H. frontalis from Costa Rica, and H. preocularis from Colombia. Roze () lists the island of Bonaire in

Fig. 5. Helminthophis sp., yellow-head ground puppy. Only specimen ever collected. (USNM 286925)

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the distribution of this snake genus but does not give any indication as to what species is found there. Roze’s distribution map for the species found closest to Trinidad—H. flavoterminatus—excludes the areas of Venezuela nearest to Trinidad. If the species on Trinidad proves to be this taxon, this will be a considerable range extension for H. flavoterminatus. This snake is oviparous, and Murphy () places Helminthophis in the family Anomalepididae. Genus: Typhlops Duméril and Bibron Typhlops Duméril and Bibron  Typhlops brongersmianus Vanzolini  Burrowing Snake : TRINIDAD—SMF a (Boettger ); AMNH , Tucker Valley (Dixon and Hendricks ); USNM , Aripo Savanna (Crombie ); USNM , Cumuto.  (fig. ): The nasal cleft is incomplete, the prefrontals not in contact. Body is cylindrical, reaching . cm in maximum length. The dorsum has  scale rows and is brown with yellow or reddish tints; the snout is lighter. Scales are streaked on the edges with dark brown. Ventral scales are similar to dorsals, with a terminal spine on the tail. Belly is light, pearly cream. : Trinidad (Dixon and Hendricks ), South America.  : (Suggested) Burrowing snake.

Fig. 6. Typhlops brongersmianus, burrowing snake. Wounds on neck and hind-body are from a domestic chicken. (USNM 286929)

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 : A burrowing snake similar in habits to Helminthophis and Leptotyphlops, this species feeds on ants, termites, their eggs and larvae, and perhaps other arthropods (Hart ). Specimen USNM  was collected in  in a manure heap where it had been scratched out by a foraging domestic chicken and pecked to death (see fig. ). Dixon and Soini () recorded that this species is oviparous and that it is preyed upon by the coral snake Micrurus lemniscatus. : Historically, the genus Typhlops, as occurring on Trinidad, has been represented by T. reticulatus (Field Naturalists’ Club a; Peters b). The history of this error has been fully documented by Dixon and Hendricks (). In , Richmond, having access for the first time to material collected in Trinidad, assigned the two specimens collected in Tucker Valley to T. reticulatus. Vanzolini () described a new species, T. brongersmai, from Brazil—changed to T. brongersmianus in  (Vanzolini)—and upon comparison of the Trinidad specimens to a mass of material from South America, the Trinidad specimens were recognized to be this taxon and not T. reticulatus. Because of the historical use of T. reticulatus for any Typhlops from Trinidad that was not the rare T. trinitatus (Richmond ), the USNM  specimen is listed in the museum acquisition sheet as T. reticulatus. Examination of this recent specimen with existing keys and specimens shows that it is in fact T. brongersmianus. Thus, unless specimens are collected to verify the presence of T. reticulatus on Trinidad or on Tobago, that taxon should be deleted from any lists of the herpetofauna for the two islands. T. reticulatus occurs in South America east of the Andes (Peters and Orejas-Miranda ; Dixon and Hendricks ). Typhlops trinitatus Richmond  Trinidad Burrowing Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—AMNH , Arima, April ,  (Richmond ; Emsley ). TOBAGO—MCZ , Bacolet (Thomas ); USNM , , , , , ,  (Hardy ). : Nasal suture is complete; the prefrontals are not in contact. Body is cylindrical, with maximum length of  cm; there are  scale rows around the body. The dorsum is patterned with rows of brown dots on a yellow background. Snout on rostral and nasals is yellow, as is the tip of the tail. Eye are situated under the ocular-preocular suture. the belly is yellow over  scale rows. There is a terminal spine on the tail. : Trinidad, Tobago. Note that Murphy () used Woodcock’s () report of a snake found in association with leaf-cutting ants (Atta) to list as probable on Tobago L. albifrons, which has not been collected there, instead of Typhlops trinitatus, which has been collected. Two other genera found on Tobago, Leptodeira and Pseudoboa, lay their eggs in Atta nests (Riley et al. ).

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 : (Suggested) Trinidad burrowing snake.  : A burrowing snake probably often mistaken for an earthworm, this snake is found mainly in rotting wood and under loose earth. It probably feeds on ants, termites, and their eggs and larvae as well as other small arthropods. : One specimen found in Tobago, MCZ , was identified as another species, Typhlops lehneri (Emsley ), but Thomas () had confirmed that this specimen, collected in Scarborough Burial Ground and referred to by Underwood () as Typhlops sp., was in fact T. trinitatus. Hardy (:–, ) further confirmed that seven more specimens collected in Tobago were also this species and used the name trinitatis instead of trinitatus.

Family: Aniliidae—Pipe Snakes Aniliidae Boulenger 1893 This small family of specialized burrowing snakes shares certain features of the Boidae, having teeth on the premaxilla and maxilla (in Anilius) and the palatines and pterygoid as well as the dentary bones; there are pelvic vestiges or external hooks or claws similar to those of boas and pythons. The bones of the skull are fused or consolidated to assist in its burrowing life, and the ventral scales are reduced to being only about twice the size of the dorsals. The head tends to be flattened, and there is little narrowing in the neck region. The body is cylindrical and the tail is short. These snakes are moderate in size, growing up to about  m. The scales are smooth and usually brightly colored—red or yellow—with irregular glossy black crossbars. Genus: Anilius Oken Anilius Oken  Anilius scytale scytale (Linnaeus ) Burrowing False Coral, Rouleau Plate  : TRINIDAD—TRVL (s, no coll. number or locality). : This is a moderate-sized snake,  cm long; body is cylindrical with no distinct neck, a flattened head, and short stubby tail. Ventral and subcaudal scales are only twice the size of the dorsals. Body is bright red, scales tipped with black with numerous irregular black bars crossing the dorsal and ventral surfaces. Cloacal claws are present. Ventral scales , subcaudal scales , scale rows  at midbody. : Trinidad, Guianas, Amazonian South America.  : (Suggested) Burrowing false coral; rouleau (de Verteuil :).

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Fig. 7. Head scalation of Anilius scytale. Note eye beneath scale. (After Chippaux 1986)

 : Nothing is known of the natural history of this rare and enigmatic snake in Trinidad. To date only one specimen of undetermined locality has been recorded. Being a burrower, it probably feeds on other small creatures in the substrate. Beebe () found beetles in the stomach contents and Amaral () stated that it lives in rivers and lakes and feeds on fishes and frogs. He also stated that it is ovoviviparous and bears – live young, though Duellman () reported small ovarian eggs in June and also found these snakes in the earth in the jungle when they were unearthed by bulldozers clearing land. Mehrtens () records that they feed on burrowing amphibians (caecilians), lizards (amphisbaenids), and small snakes. He too states that they bear living young. Dixon and Soini () recorded births of six and four young in February and January. : The history of the presence of this snake in Trinidad is interesting. It was first listed in de Verteuil (:), where Dr. J. Court recorded Tortryx Scytale and explained in a footnote that it was called rouleau—French for “one that rolls” or “a roller.” The “Court collection” of reptiles was well known and was referred to by Mole (b:); it was lodged in the Royal Victoria Institute Museum but lost in a devastating fire on April ,  (Mavrogordato ). Tortryx was used for Anilius by Oppel in  (a, b), until Anilius replaced it in  (Oken). Court must have used a combination of Oppel’s  Tortryx and

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Linnaeus’s  Anguis Scytale to come up with his Tortryx Scytale, which was the current name, found in the natural history dictionaries (de Saint Vincent , Gervais ) available to him at the time. The common name rouleau was once the generic name by which this taxon was known and recognized (Bonaterre ), until there was general standardization of the use of Linnaean nomenclature toward the end of the nineteenth century. Since the time of Dr. J. Court (in de Verteuil ), the first hint that this snake should be considered in the list of Trinidad snakes is in a key prepared by James Oliver around . The  version of Oliver’s key, a six-page typewritten document, was passed on to me by Ludolph Wehekind in ; my copy bears the notation “Modified by T. H. Aitken,” who worked at the Trinidad Regional Virus Lab, CAREC (Caribbean Epidemiology Centre) about . Both of these keys include Anilius scytale. Wehekind also passed on to me (I hand-copied it in , in the days when photocopying was a rare innovation in Trinidad), a list of snakes titled “List from F. W. Urich’s notes. Corrected by H. W. Parker, British Museum, and rechecked by Dr. Beebe, and L. Wehekind with Dr. Oliver’s list. Jan. .” This list also includes Anilius scytale. Wehekind’s compilation was a preparatory rough draft of his later published “Notes on the Foods of the Trinidad Snakes” (Wehekind ) and the two versions of “Trinidad Snakes” (Wehekind a, b, c). In these publications, Anilius scytale is listed. In  Emsley published “A Consideration of the List of Snakes Recorded from Trinidad” and expressed the opinion that since the British Museum had one specimen from Trinidad, Bolivia, and not Trinidad, West Indies, and “no records from Trinidad, West Indies are known to the author, . . . until further specimens are collected, it should not be included in the island list.” My works (Boos , a, a) reflect this exclusion. Emsley () included the species in his key but with a notation that the records were doubtful, the possible reason being that by then Roze () had recorded two subspecies from eastern and southeastern Venezuela. Emsley ventured that “it is possible that it occurs on Trinidad.” An interesting point arising from Roze (:) is that on the distribution map, the subspecies that is charted nearest to Trinidad and the Orinoco River delta is Anilius scytale phelpsorum, A. s. scytale being found to the extreme southeast corner of Venezuela and obviously into Guyana (Peters and Orejas-Miranda ), which is not shown. It would thus seem reasonable that the subspecies on Trinidad should be phelpsorum (see later discussion.) Raymond Martinez, who worked at the Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory (ca. -) and has a passing interest in snakes, and who had access to the bottled collection, asked me to attempt to identify an unlabeled and undated specimen, which he assured me could have come from nowhere except Trinidad. Extensive work and collecting was done by Virus Lab personnel in the years after

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World War II in the Nariva Swamp from the headquarters on Bush Bush Island, an area of high ground situated in the swamp. This collecting included many snakes (Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory :). From  to ,  specimens of  species were recorded and identified by J. Oliver. At first, without examining the specimen closely but based merely on a cursory look in the bottle, both Jerry Dave Hardy and I identified it as Erythrolamprus aesculapii—an exciting find, we thought, to add to USNM  (see E. aesculapii account). However, some weeks later, upon closer reexamination of the specimen, I was able to identify it positively as Anilius, and from the color pattern—though it was faded—and scale counts, using Roze () and Peters and Orejas-Miranda (), I could fix it as A. s. scytale and not as A. s. phelpsorum. With this amazing find, the list of snakes for Trinidad and Tobago had part of the Anilius mystery resolved. But many mysteries remain. There is a fertile field to be explored in the future to determine whether such rare and sometimes oneof-a-kind specimens are the dying remains of old, relict populations or waifs from South America carried to Trinidad in an ongoing wave of colonization.

Family: Boidae—Boas and Pythons Boidae Gray 1842 This family contains some of the largest and best known snakes in the world. Divided into two subfamilies, the boas are generally found in the Americas, with some exceptions in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific islands; the pythons are found in Africa, Asia, and Australia. Four species of boa are found in Trinidad and three in Tobago. Conspicuous due to their relatively large size and their feeding on rats and mice, which tend to follow human habitation, these are often the most frequently encountered, widely known, and best recognized of the local snakes. Besides their geographical distribution and some anatomical differences, boas differ from pythons in that they do not lay eggs in the usual way; the embryos are retained in the body of the female in a shell-less sac until simultaneous hatching and birth, a condition known as ovoviviparity. Though in relation to their size they can eat large prey, stories of the killing and eating of large animals such as bulls and horses are exaggerations, part of the extensive folklore and mythology surrounding these large snakes. Depending on the size and age of the boa, prey items include fish, turtles, birds, other reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Generally placid in disposition, with some species making popular pets, boas will bite in defense and if provoked. Some species, however, will bite at any given opportunity.

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Fig. 8. Typical head scalation of family Boidae. (After Chippaux 1986)

Genus: Boa Linnaeus Boa Linnaeus  Boa constrictor constrictor Linnaeus  Macajuel, Boa Constrictor Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (b) (Gunther ); MCZ (Garman ); BMNH (c) and (m) (Boulenger ). TOBAGO—BMNH (a) (Boulenger ); SMF (Boettger a); BMNH (d) (Gray ). : Detailed scientific descriptions have been given elsewhere (Emsley ; Murphy ). This is a thick-bodied snake with a distinct neck and a flat head with a square rostral. Colors vary considerably, a variety of light gray to cinnamon brown or light brown oblong spots along the dorsum, separated by darker crossbars, often with distinct white flashes on the dorsolateral areas of these crossbars. The tail colors, dramatically different from the body pattern, are red-brown patterning outlined with dirty white to yellow areas. Females are generally larger than the males, their bodies being almost square in section. There is usually a pair of spurs on the side of the cloaca of males. A large specimen is about  m maximum (see Natural History and Folklore for more on size). : Trinidad, Tobago, Monos Island, Gaspar Grande Island, Amazonian South America to Argentina, Paraguay.  : Macajuel (mainly derived from the Venezuelan macaruel),

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macaruel, macajuil, maracouil, maca ouel, maca whel; mc cawwell (Verbum Sap , humorous); Macasick (vs. macawell, humorous, in current use); mackawel, mauccaw (Halliday ); carpet snake (Tobago; Young ); jumbo jocko (Tobago; Ober ); boa constrictor, mahajuel, boiguacu (Gray ).  : One of the larger constricting snakes in the world, the macajuel is found in almost every habitat throughout its range. Mainly terrestrial as an adult, it is partially arboreal when a juvenile or subadult. These constrictors are often found in the deep woods, occupying the dry insides of hollow logs; they are collected also from suburban homes and warehouses and have been found coiled around the understructure of fire engines and cars that have been parked in or around bush land. Feeding on reptilian, avian, mammalian, and possibly amphibian prey when young, as adults they take any prey they can subdue, including domestic animals, hunting dogs, goats, fowls, pigeons, and wild game, including the introduced mongoose (Urich ; Vezey-Fitzgerald ; Oliver ) and the ocelot, Felis pardalis (Mole a, , ; Urich ; Beebe ; Wehekind , a). One specimen, approximately  m long, caught on the grounds of a house on Lady Chancellor Road above Port of Spain, regurgitated a full-grown domesticated tomcat. At one meal, a . m specimen in my collection ate three large rats and its cage mate, another boa constrictor,  m long. After each had eaten one rat, a struggle had ensued over the third, resulting in the larger snake consuming the smaller, including its earlier meal. The digestive process of the gorged snake took over two weeks to be completed. In Cassell’s (ca. ) Natural History, there is an account of one specimen in the London Zoological Garden swallowing “a large railway blanket wrapper” instead of two rabbits left in the cage overnight. John Dunstan, who kept snakes in the s, had a burlap sac swallowed by a boa constrictor to a point too thick to allow further progress. These cloths must have been impregnated with the smell of the prey animals to stimulate such strange feeding attempts. Several males pay court to the female when she is in oestrus, as many as ten individuals being reported tangled together (West India Committee Circular ). Mating has been observed from December to March (Mole and Urich b; Mole b), the young being born from May to September, from six to  young being produced, approximately  to  cm long (see figs. , ). The ratio of the number of young to their size when born often depends on the size of the female (Mole , b; Trinidad Sunday Guardian ; Field Naturalist Club a). The young feed almost immediately on small mammalian prey such as mice; this is often within days of their birth or their first change of skin. Some also take reptilian prey. From time to time, there has been controversy over the observed “laying of eggs” by this species (Mole and Urich b; Trinidad Guardian ; Trinidad

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Fig. 9. Boa constrictor constrictor, macajuel. Litter of macajuels a few hours old.

Fig. 10. Juvenile boa constrictor from Trinidad. Note the dramatic difference between tail colors and body pattern.

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Fig. 11. Boa constrictor with abnormal skin patterning. Captive-born to heat-stressed mother, resulting in loss of cross-bars on dorsal surface.

Sunday Guardian ; Carr ). This has arisen due to captive boas giving birth to premature young still encased in the transparent egg capsule or the passing of opaque, infertile egg masses by females in captivity. This happens when the snakes have been subjected to extreme stress and heat. If the female survives this period without aborting the fetuses, the young often show abnormal skin patterning or other physical deformities when they eventually hatch at full term (see fig. ). Reported at  feet long, a specimen from South America contained forty-one “eggs” (Field Naturalist Club a:). Besides the ectoparasitic ticks and mites that are sometimes found on newly captured boas (Wehekind ), Everard () found the following endoparasites in boa constrictors from Trinidad: Protozoa: Cestoda: Nematoda:

Pentostomida:

Haemogregarina (poss. terzii) Haemogregarina (poss. juxtanucleare) Ophiotaenia (poss. grandis) Crepidobothrium gerrardi Kalicephalus chitwoodi Physaloptera sp. Hastospiculum onchocercum Dracunculus Porocephalus clavatus

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Riley and Self (), investigating parasites in snakes, found the pentastomid Porocephalus clavatus in preserved specimens of Boa constrictor from Trinidad in the American Museum of Natural History and in the British Museum. Sprent () sought a connection between boa constrictors on Trinidad and on Tobago and the rare human nematode parasite Lagochilascaris minor but could isolate no larvae that would indicate that snakes were an intermediate host. Tobago has one of twelve (three living) reported cases in the world of this rare parasitic infection. The maximum size of the taxon Boa constrictor has been the subject of much speculation and misinformation over the past  years. Ditmars (a) put matters in perspective when, in his popular Snakes of the World, he stated that “the term ‘Boa constrictor’ has long been a misleading one. It originated when early naturalists applied it as a scientific title to one of the big serpents of tropical America, but to a species smaller than the anaconda” (p. ). This common name became associated with all big snakes that were constrictors and was indiscriminately applied not only to the big serpents of tropical America but to the big constrictors of the Old World—the pythons of Africa and Asia (Quelch ). Ditmars (a) said that the Boa constrictor of South America “seldom attains a length in excess of twelve feet” as a maximum. Despite claims of greater lengths by many subsequent authors, culminating in the long-held world size record for Trinidad of . feet for a “Boa Constrictor” killed in the Guaico-Tamana area (Bogert ; Oliver ; Pope ), it should now be evident that Ditmars’s original estimate is far nearer the truth. The recordbreaking “boa” was shown to be a misidentified anaconda (Boos ). This confusion has been known for a long time. It was noted in Cassell’s Natural History (ca. ) account of the boa constrictor. Such misidentification and misuse of the name boa for python, and vice versa (Randall ), is often seen in popular travel guides; many covering Trinidad and Tobago are freely spiced with tall tales of exotic places and animals, including giant snakes. Undoubtedly some of the writers saw large snakes or were told stories by locals—stories still circulating today—but memory can be faulty and stories were often embroidered to emphasize the danger these giants posed to humans in the exotic tropics. Day () said he believed “that the only real danger to be apprehended was in coming unaware upon a boa constrictor” and that “this fear was not quite chimerical, as a boa constrictor  feet long, had only a week before been killed in the caves of Bellevue of which Mr. S——— was Manager” (p. ). Froude () tells of “huge pythons in Trinidad” which are attracted to “cool water,” and “are seen occasionally coiled among branches of the bamboo” (p. ). Another “large dead python” lying on the bottom of a river pool deterred one bather from plunging in (Froude ). A century later the confusion persists: in his novel Space (:), the usually precise James A. Michener has trainee astro-

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nauts on a survival course in the Amazon basin being warned to look out for any “python moving in.” Tobago has its share of large snakes as well, for Rochefort () tells of “monstrous serpents twelve to fifteen feet long” (translation). Ober () embellishes his tale of “an immense boa constrictor” with “hideous body,” “glittering eyes,” and a “slimy carcase” which was  feet long—a small specimen, according to the tales he was told of the “Jumbo Jockos” of Tobago over  feet long and able to eat fowls and “fierce peccary.” Despite the fear and awe inspired by these legendary giant snakes, there are reports of the early black slaves on Tobago (Anon. ) eating these large “twelve or fifteen foot” “monstrous Serpents,” which unusual and possibly secretive penchant for snake meat was confirmed by Governor Young (). My own experience with perceptions of the size of boa constrictors involved being asked to join a hunt for a boa on a cocoa estate in the Tabaquite area of central Trinidad. The estate owner swore he had seen the snake and it was nothing less than  feet long. After several hours of searching, I located a large boa hiding in the hollow of a felled immortelle tree. Caught and bagged, it was shown to the estate owner, who looked into the bag and affirmed that it was the snake he had seen. Told that this snake was about  feet and not  feet long, he just as emphatically affirmed that the captured snake was not the one he had reported (Boos ). The snake was a gravid female that gave birth prematurely to about  young; only two or three lived. As recently as , a “self-indulgent Naturalist,” Mahon Nanan, reported seeing “three gigantic macajuels,” one of which he was sure “must have been over twenty feet in length” (Nanan ). Exhaustion and imagination must have played a part in this sighting along the north coast between Paria and Madamas bays. The ambiguity surrounding the boa constrictor is reflected once more by Rowan (), in a poem, saying that they are sometimes “very deadly” but that the teeth are “not poisonous,” and that they often “break the bones” of animals before swallowing them “large and small.” Niddrie (), similarly incorrectly, tells of the “legendary powers of the boa constrictor to squeeze the body to a pulp” (p. ). : The macajuel, Trinidad and Tobago’s Boa constrictor, has the distinction of being perhaps the only animal for which a well- known popular name is identical to its scientific name—Boa constrictor. It was named by Linnaeus in , and except for one brief flutter by Stejneger in  (stabilized by Forcart in ), this scientific name has remained unchanged for more than  years. The literature offers many examples of authors (this writer among them) who followed Stejneger’s attempt to change the genus Boa to Constrictor, and who all continued to use “Constrictor” long after  due to lack of knowledge or lack of acceptance of the clarification by Forcart (Barbour , a, ; Amaral

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Fig. 12. Boa constrictor and deer. Illustration from Cassell’s Popular Natural History, ca. 1860, showing exaggerated unhinging of the jaw.

a; Stull ; Vezey-Fitzgerald ; Field ; Nicéforo-Maria ; Beebe ; Wehekind , a, b, c; Underwood ; Boos ; Boos and Quesnel ; Lindblad ; Sprent ; Muller ; Alleyne ca. ; Bacon ; Bacon et al. ). Had Stejneger’s change been accepted, it would have established one of the very few trinomials in taxonomic nomenclature (i.e., Constrictor constrictor constrictor). Eight subspecies are currently recognized (Peters and Orejas-Miranda ),  by Bosch (), with the subspecies constrictor occurring on Trinidad and on Tobago. Recently, Bartlett () was of the opinion that there was evidence for only seven valid subspecies or varieties of this very plastic species. For many years, and in many papers, another species—Boa orophias or B. diviniloqua—was listed as being found on Trinidad (Mole and Urich a; Mole a, b; Orde ; Amaral a; Barbour a, b, ; Fitzsimons ; Oliver ), until Emsley () suggested that the taxon be formally excluded from the list of Trinidad snakes. Boa orophias is in fact found on the island of Dominica in the Lesser Antilles. Lazell () stabilized the taxonomy of the subspecies of Boa constrictor found on the islands of Trinidad, St. Lucia, and Dominica. Gunther () lists Boa imperator for Trinidad; this was obviously an error and was not compounded by Boulenger (). B. imperator is a Mexican and western South American species. : Generally speaking, the majority of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, if they paused one moment to think, would admit that they are aware that

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not all snakes are venomous; especially not the boa constrictor. But the nagging fear persists that it may be poisonous and that the snake can do some harm. It can still “bite like a dog”—a good enough excuse to justify the continued slaughter. Ober () writes about the power of an “immense boa constrictor . . . mesmerizing an agouti.” A belief still current today is that “these rascals usually hunt in pairs” (Ober :). Many a Venezuelan immigrant—the “Cocoa Spanish” or “Cocoa Panyol”— to the jungle estates of Trinidad must have brought with him the name tragavenado. This means “deer-swallower” in Spanish, and has led to the often-heard claim that large snakes can eat animals as large as the imagination supplies, even cows. Cassell (ca. ) includes an illustration showing a boa constrictor coiled around a deer. The imagined disjointing of the jaws to enable the swallowing of this large prey item is illustrated with some exaggeration and imagination (fig. ). Hart (), republishing de Suze (, ), adds that the boa constrictors “are dangerous in their coil not their bite” (p. ). Danger is also attributed to their breath—no macajuel should “blow” on one. Gamble () states that a “macaouel . . . whenever irritated inflates its body and then loudly emits a foetid and sickening breath which produces a sensation of faintness” (p. ). This belief persists and is attributable to the fact that an enraged or injured macajuel will hiss and “blow” loudly. Another enduring belief is that the boas anchor their tails underwater while catching and holding their prey. This idea must have been well established when Gray wrote about the boas of South America in . One of stories most often told about the macajuel involves a weary hunter resting on what he thought was a huge log in a jungle clearing, only to have the “log” come to life when warmed by the hunter’s campfire (West India Committee Circular ; Garcia ). Wilkins () tells of a sorcerer, a “Dagoman,” who kept an “aboma,” or boa constrictor,  feet long as a companion and as guardian of his gloomy domicile, making “various noises of alarm and anger.” Wilkins is evidently drawing upon elements found elsewhere, for the common name aboma is used in the Guianas, not Trinidad and Tobago. Vernon () records a similar story about the Creoles in Suriname, who buy “Dagowe” (boa) or “aboma” (anaconda), and keep these snakes for luck and to give the magician special knowledge of certain magical recipes. Nevertheless, the macajuel is the snake of choice for the few people who keep them in cages and terraria as pets (Dowling a). They have even been considered the snake of choice for “The Potential for the Integration of Reptile Farming with Commercial Livestock Production in Trinidad and Tobago” (Blanc ). And they inspire some outrageous poetry, as by Harper (ca. ):

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But brother, the biggest snake, the Macajuel, the laziest isn’t he He can swallow you in the forest quite easily. But it took E. L. Joseph (a) in his novel Warner Arundell to bring together the many legends, incorporating both the boa constrictor and the anaconda, into one terrifying encounter. The hero Warner, while riding though the terrain of the Caroni swamp-plain between Chaguanas and St. Joseph, has to seek refuge from a fire sweeping across the grassy swamp and driving a virtual compendium of Trinidadian wildlife before it. Finding a small lake, horse and rider plunge in, sharing the refuge with other animals that have also found it, and there, together, they wait out the conflagration. The fire finally burns itself out, leaving the surrounding earth too hot for immediate travel. Warner ties the horse to a partially submerged stump in the lake and is trying to cool off a portion of the bank so that they do not have to spend the night in the water with the many “reptiles” he notices sharing their refuge, when the distressed neigh of the horse calls him back into the water. Joseph tells of “an enormous mackawel or boa constrictor of about twenty-five feet in length,” with coils knotted around the tree stump, attacking the horse. To save his mount Warner does battle with a cutlass, braving seemingly dislocated jaws and “infernal breath”—worthy of a footnote to clarify that this breath is “in fact . . . called their fascination.” The boa constrictor—of a length worthy of an anaconda, a snake not yet found in the Caroni drainage (see Eunectes species account)—is killed, and the horse, which we are asked to believe was the mackawel’s intended dinner, is saved. We can accord Joseph poetic license in his delightful fictional account, but in his History of Trinidad (b), he states as fact that boa constrictors  feet long were killed with his assistance and that a considerably larger one was taken in the hills above Port of Spain. He also claims that when the snakes are torpid after a large meal, “their odour is extremely unwholesome,” so unwholesome that three men sent to cut down a tree became sick from the smell of a boa up in the branches in a “state of torpor” (p. ). It is nothing short of amazing that stories told to Joseph more than a century and a half ago, stories he reported in one of the major and most quoted histories of Trinidad and Tobago, are still told and believed today. That the breath of boa constrictors and other large snakes is believed in Trinidad and Tobago to be injurious, if not poisonous, to those unlucky enough to be “blown” upon, perhaps has its genesis in a similar belief in Africa. In East Africa, a snake known as nhumba masaka is believed to cause death with its breath alone (Bosch ). This belief could have been transferred to the Caribbean by the large numbers of Africans transported during the slave trade. Joseph more than likely based his assertion that the fetid breath or smell given off by snakes was known as “their fascination” on the information given in one

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of the major works of the time preceding his writing in : L’Histoire naturelle des quadrupédes ovipares et des serpens, by Count de Lacépède (–). This work underwent several translations and contained the explanation that the fascination seemingly exerted by a snake upon its intended prey emanated from “the pestilential breath of the serpent, or noxious effluvia exhaling from his body” (Medden :). Macajuel oil rendered from the fatty tissue stored in the body cavity of large, healthy snakes was at one time and perhaps still is used as a popular rub for sore, swollen, and injured limbs and joints, and it is probably still an ingredient for practicing obeah men and women. In recent years, although all snakes except the four venomous ones are protected under the Wildlife Law presently in force in Trinidad and Tobago, macajuels have continued to be killed regularly. The Trinidad Guardian newspaper () pictured three large specimens tied together at the head end and stretched out dead beside a highway. It was considered something of a mystery to find them there, almost ritually laid out; comment in the Express (Chase ) was that the killer of these snakes, if found, could be fined , T and T dollars. On September , , a special set of four postage stamps depicting snakes was issued, the macajuel being featured on the -cent stamp. Genus: Corallus Daudin Corallus Daudin  Corallus ruschenbergerii (Cope ) Cascabel Dormillon, Tree Boa Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH A.(i) (Boulenger ); NMW (Werner ); SMF B, a (Boettger ); FMNH – (Henderson and Boos ; Henderson ); USNM , , , , . (Henderson ); AMNH , , , , , , ,  (Henderson ); MCZ , , . (Henderson ); MPM , -, ,  (Henderson ); UF  (Henderson ). TOBAGO—SMF (coll. by J. Boos) (Mertens b); USNM – (Hardy ; Henderson and Boos ; Henderson ); AMNH  (Henderson ); MCZ  (Henderson ). Note: Though Mertens (b) recorded the first official specimen for Tobago, a Mr. Orde, in the Trinidad Guardian (), noted its presence on Tobago  years before, and the “Mango Snakes” reported shot in the “Talk of the Hummingbird” column in the Trinidad Guardian () were tree boas; this record too predates Mertens (b).  (fig. ): Detailed scientific descriptions have been given elsewhere (Emsley ; Murphy ). This is a mainly nocturnal and arboreal snake, with a laterally compressed body when young, becoming more cylindrical in the adult.

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Fig. 13. Corallus ruschenbergerii, cascabel dormillon. Immature patterned color phase. This pattern will fade at maturity.

On Trinidad and on Tobago color is not as variable as on other islands such as Grenada, the Grenadines, and St. Vincent, though the mainland Venezuelan form is similar to the ones found in Trinidad and Tobago. During the day individuals are usually seen coiled in a tight ball in a tree, often over water (see plate ). The young are mainly carrot orange, pinkish, or pale gray-green with faint but darker rhomb-shaped blotches on the sides. In adults, color is a drab khaki green or brown, yellow beneath the chin, neck, and fore body, with black scattered or checkered pattern on the tail. The head is blunt, with the lip scales deeply pitted; the occiput is large and appears swollen. The neck is comparatively thin behind the large, distinct head. This species is distinguished from the others of the hortulanus species complex by having fewer ventrals (average .) than C. hortulanus (.), C. grenadensis (.), and C. cookii (.); having fewer subcaudals (. vs. ., ., .); and having the following maximum dorsal scale rows (. vs. ., ., .) (Henderson ). Some of the largest individuals have been found in Trinidad measuring up to  m. Females are usually larger and thicker-bodied than the males. Anal spurs are present, larger in the males. : Trinidad, Tobago, Nicaragua to northern Colombia, northern Venezuela.  : Tree boa, common tree boa, tree boa constrictor, Cook’s tree boa, Cook’s boa, yellow tree boa, yellow-marbled tree boa; cascabel, cascabel dormillon, castabel; cascabelle, mapanara (Rampersad ); dormillon, horsewhip,

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mapanare, mangrove cascabel, mangrove dormillona, mango snake (possibly derived from “mangrove snake”), sleeping rattlesnake.  : Being mainly nocturnal and arboreal, this boa is often not noticed, as it sleeps during the day coiled in a tight spherical mass, at the extremities of tree branches, often overhanging open water, such as reservoirs and rivers, in open sunlight (Moonen ). It has also been collected in the branches of Clusia, growing on the rocks on the north coast of Trinidad between Paria and Petite Tacarib bays. It is fairly commonly seen, too, in the mangrove trees overhanging the Caroni Swamp. Mole (c, ) vividly described the finding and capture of a specimen “seven feet long” from the mangroves overhanging the Caroni River, where he had gone with his friend and co-author F. W. Urich, to shoot “babiche” (Caiman crocodilus). However, this boa has also been collected from trees and gardens from the suburbs of towns in the north of Trinidad. One juvenile specimen was collected inside a bird cage; having entered the cage and eaten the caged finch, because of the bulge of the meal in its body, the snake could not escape the cage any more than could the former occupant. At night these snakes can be located easily by reflected eye shine, as they forage in the trees for sleeping lizards or birds or for active nocturnal rodents and bats. Juveniles feed on amphibian and reptilian prey but, as they grow, graduate to larger and warm-blooded animals. Comparison of prey taken by tree boas found on the Antillean islands with those on Trinidad showed that reptilian prey in the form of lizards was taken in the Antilles (Pendlebury ), while in the larger specimens from Trinidad mammalian prey was more common, with reptiles also taken. The list of prey includes frogs (Wehekind , Pendlebury , Stafford ), rats (Henderson and Boos ), mice, bats (Myotis albescens) in Peru (Dixon and Soini ), squirrels, porcupine rats (Mole and Urich ), mongooses (Urich ), birds, and iguanas. One small specimen, about  m long, that I caught in central Trinidad regurgitated an unidentified bat. While collecting one night at Hollis Reservoir, Robert Henderson and I saw a tree boa foraging among the fruiting and flowering outer branches of a vine on which numerous bats were feeding (Henderson a). Ditmars () examined a preserved skull of this species and, noting the long teeth, stated that this was a special adaptation for the catching and holding of the birds on which he supposed these snakes largely fed. An odd note on the feeding behavior of this species is in a report of the birth in the Georgetown Zoo in Guyana of sixteen young anacondas, one of which was “swallowed by a Gray Tree Boa” (Roth ). Tree boas’ deeply pitted labial scales are equipped with heat sensors, enabling them to locate warm-blooded prey in the dark. They kill by a swift bite and as swift constriction, the first third of their slender bodies being thrown around the seized prey in tight loops. Often, killed prey is held in a coil of the midbody while fresh prey is caught and constricted.

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Being extremely aggressive and defensive when disturbed, these nonvenomous tree boas have often been mistaken for their venomous relatives, the long anterior teeth in the upper jaw held as proof of this. Courtship and mating can involve more than one male attending a female in oestrus, as observed when Bronx Park Zoo curator of reptiles John Behler and I visited Hollis Reservoir in the early s. It was early in the dry season, around February or March, and the water level of the lake was still high, almost lapping the low-hanging branches of trees surrounding the reservoir. When investigated, an unusually large ball on a low branch over the water—the usual daytime resting posture of this species—was found to consist of one large female and two smaller attendant males. Tree boas are able but clumsy swimmers and will drop into the water from tree perches as a last resort to escape capture. These boas are mature at about two years and can breed at this age (Oxtoby ). They have been seen to mate from February to April (Mole and Urich ), and as many as – young have been born in August (Mole b) and in September (Mole and Urich b). Pere Labat, in , noted  young in a “serpent”—the name by which this species is known in Grenada (Mole ). Newly born young are carrot orange or pale gray-green, differing greatly in color from the adults but identical in aggressiveness and the willingness to bite in defense. The young feed on small lizards (Mole and Urich b), frogs, and possibly tiny nestling birds, and live a cryptic life in the hiding places offered by the thick epiphytic growth on the branches of large jungle trees. Though both adults and young tree boas must themselves fall prey to the avian and mammalian carnivores in Trinidad and Tobago, such as the ocelot (Felis pardalis) and the tayra (Eira barbara), they are also preyed upon by other snakes. Mole (a) records a tree boa being killed and eaten by a “cribo” (Oxyrhopus cloelia = Clelia clelia). Urich () found that tree boas were still fairly common in spite of the introduction of the mongoose to Trinidad in  (Hinton and Dunn ). Henderson et al. (:) noted that on Grenada Island, tree boas fall prey to the manicou (Didelphis marsupialis), introduced on that island but native to Trinidad and Tobago; and that the mongoose seen foraging arboreally and the introduced Mona monkey (Cercopithicus mona), were likely predators on young Corallus. A similar situation, no doubt, may exist on Trinidad, with the capuchin monkey (Cebus albifrons) replacing the Mona monkey, though primates generally show an innate fear of snakes. There are no mongooses or monkeys on Tobago. The ectoparasitic chiggers Eutrombicula alfreddugesi tropica and E. goldii have been found on tree boas (Brennan and Jones ); the endoparasite protozoan Haemogogarina and the nematode Dracunculus were found by Everard (). Tree boas were investigated in search of the intermediate stage of the rare human parasite Logochilascaris minor by Sprent (), who found no connection.

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: Stejneger (), attempting to replace the genus Boa with Constrictor, also replaced Corallus with Boa. Forcart stabilized the genus in  and though the species has been variously been described as hortulana and ruschenbergii (Boettger ), the taxon was fixed as Corallus enydris cookii for a considerable time. A full synonymy is available in Peters and Orejas-Miranda () and Henderson (b). Recently McDiarmid et al. () have resurrected the name hortulanus for this species, though Henderson () has split this taxon into four distinct species, ruschenbergerii being the form found on Trinidad and on Tobago. : Seldom being recognized as a separate and distinct species, the tree boas have been lumped with the venomous bushmaster or mapepire zanana, Lachesis muta. Similarly indicative of this confusion is the tree boa’s local name cascabel dormillon; this is a local French Creole patois adaptation of the Spanish name cascabela dormillona—“sleeping rattlesnake”—used by immigrant Venezuelan cocoa workers. True rattlesnakes of the genus Crotalus are still called cascabel in Venezuela. The local name “mapanare” is a direct borrowing of the Venezuelan name for another venomous snake of the genus Bothrops. The tree boa’s readiness to bite and to strike out blindly at any moving object within range is undoubtedly what has given it such a reputation. Stories of large “mapepires” striking at and knocking hunters’ headlights out or off their heads (Stewart ) or being found in thatched roofs (Trinidad Guardian ) are more than likely descriptions of tree boas’ behavior rather than of either Lachesis or Bothrops. The “Mango Snakes” or “dreaded mapapires” that were shot out of trees in Tobago (Hummingbird ), or the snakes up in trees over the River Aripo in Trinidad with a head “like that of a Pug Dog with a dreadful frown on the countenance” that must be hit in the head to kill them as the shot “glides from their body” (Hammet ) are undoubtedly tree boas. Misinformation has led Rampersad () to state incorrectly that the cascabelle and mapanara (in Trinidad and Tobago) are venomous snakes, and to the locals in Tobago informing Crossham () that the tree boa was also known to them as “horse whip.” Kingsley () recognized that two dead “Dormillons,” or “Mangrove Cascabel,” found killed on the road were useful snakes, should not be killed, and were certainly not the “true Cascabel” (Lachesis) that shared the burrow of the “Lapo” (Agouti paca). Kingsley made what must be one of the first appeals for the protection and conservation of these snakes, substantiating his plea after he had examined the mouths of the wantonly killed snakes and found no fangs. He was obviously influenced by the popular book by de Verteuil () in which the same information was given, but he admitted that the “Mangrove Cascabel” did look like the “true Cascabel” Trigonocephalus Jararaca (= Bothrops atrox). Joseph (b) listed the “Cascabelle” as a poisonous snake, and more than a century later Greenhall () still listed it as “potentially dangerous.” There is no doubt that the very look of the cascabel dormillon—which it certainly backs

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up with its aggressive bite—tends to make even the most tolerant person pause, wonder about discretion being the better part of valor, and give it a wide berth. Genus: Epicrates Wagler Epicrates Wagler  Epicrates cenchria maurus Gray  Rainbow Boa Plate  : TRINIDAD—SMF a, a, c (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux ); BMNH var. A, (d–f), (g) (Boulenger ). TOBAGO—MCZ, Milford Bay (Barbour b).  (fig. ): Detailed scientific descriptions have been given elsewhere (Emsley ; Murphy ). It is a terrestrial, mainly nocturnal snake, thickbodied, with a comparatively small head and compressed neck. The adults are deep brown with darker ringlike patterns on the dorsal surface. The color on the sides is lighter brown, with irregular darker blotches fading to a lighter belly. The dorsal scales give off a blue-green iridescence when exposed to direct sunlight (see plate ). The juveniles are pale brown, with a distinct, ringed, darker pattern on the dorsal surface. Adults have been reported to grow to  m, but the average length is about . m for large females. Males are smaller and slimmer and anal spurs are present. : Trinidad, Tobago, Costa Rica to Colombia, Venezuela, Guianas. Recently reported from Chacachacare Island (REAL ). This record will have to be verified.  : Rainbow boa, ringed boa, jack, jack snake, thick-necked tree boa (Zoological Society of London ), velvet mapapire, mapepire velour, ratonero. Note: Jack was the name given to an individual pet by a collector called O’Reilly in the latter years of the nineteenth century. Mole (a) noted that since that time, “snake fanciers of Port of Spain have called all the snakes of this particular kind ‘Jacks.’”  : This smaller cousin of the boa constrictor and the anaconda exhibits habits shared with both the larger snakes. It is an avid feeder on all small rodents and birds, the young feeding readily within days of being born. Their eagerness to feed was demonstrated to the then governor of Trinidad and Tobago, Sir H. E. Broome, in a meeting of the Field Naturalists’ Club on August , , when a young specimen was easily induced to feed after being taken from its cage, placed on a table, and offered a mouse (Field Naturalists’ Club c). Rainbow boas grow rapidly to adulthood and breed readily in captivity. They can be irritable upon capture and will sometimes bite in defense. (My first encounter with a large specimen resulted in my first bite. The snake was brought to me in a closed cardboard box; assured by Arthur Greenhall at the Royal Victoria

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Fig. 14. Epicrates cenchria maurus, rainbow boa. Immature showing distinct ringed pattern.

Institute Museum that it was nonvenomous, I attempted to handle it and was rewarded by a swift defensive bite.) They are mainly terrestrial, moving about in search of prey after dusk and at night, often living close to people’s houses and benefiting from the many hiding places provided under and around the debris found in these situations. Garages, lumber and brick piles, and dry holes in walls are perfect places in which to coil up tightly and await the inevitable rats and mice, which also benefit from the food scraps people provide. Such habits naturally lead to encounters with humans, encounters that increase the fear of snakes generally and often lead to the death of the rainbow boa. I encountered a girl who stepped on one and was bitten on the calf while she heading to the outhouse in the darkness; she was being attended to at the Port of Spain General Hospital. Both she and her accompanying family were terrified, virtually certain that she was going to die. They almost seemed disappointed when I pointed out that the chopped-up snake they had brought along in a bucket was a rainbow boa and that after a first-aid dressing, the bite victim could be discharged and sent home. Rainbow boas take to the water readily and often lie submerged in shallow pools, resembling in habit young anacondas; they drag their prey into the water and eat it there. They are powerful constrictors, eating amazingly large prey animals for their small size. A medium-sized rainbow boa can easily overcome, kill, and eat a full-grown rat, Rattus norvegicus. By contrast, a large wild-caught

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R. norvegicus, offered to a macajuel (Boa constrictor) . m long, attacked and so intimidated the snake that it refused even to defend itself. The rat was then offered to a rainbow boa a third the size of the macajuel; this snake immediately struck, constricted, and consumed the huge meal with little difficulty. Though generally not very arboreal, rainbow boas do climb and are often found in thatched roofs and in attics, where they hunt rats and mice. Young and small birds are readily taken; baby chicks as well as small or young manicou (opossums) and mongoose are no problem for them. They have been seen to mate from October to January, and up to approximately  young are born in June and July. Birth of  young has been recorded in July (Field Naturalists’ Club d), and young “hatchlings” were collected in Venezuela in late July and early August (Stanton and Dixon ). The young have been known to be eaten by the yellow-tail cribo, Drymarchon corais. Other mammalian and reptilian carnivores probably feed on the young as well. They are host to the chigger Eutrombicula alfreddugesi (Brennan and Jones ) and to the nematode Hastopiculum onchocercum (Everard ). Sprent () investigated the possibility of Epicrates being the intermediate host to the rare human parasite nematode Logochilascaris minor but found no connection. A female has been observed eating infertile eggs shortly after several live and viable young were born (Boos ). Other species of Epicrates have been observed to eat dead young (Groves ). Rainbow boas have been reported to inflate the neck region when annoyed, but I have not observed this behavior. They also coil into a tight spherical ball as a form of defense (see fig. ). Shaw () noted that a specimen in the Bronx Park Zoo lived a total of  years,  months. In all probability this specimen originated in Trinidad. : Boulenger (), seeing specimens in the British Museum from Trinidad, placed them in group A of Epicrates cenchris. However, these specimens were young or juvenile snakes, with distinct patterning still visible, and not the dull, almost patternless adults they would eventually become, and thus be classified as group B, E. maurus. Stull () placed the darker form, maurus—recognized as a full species by Gray ()—found in Trinidad and in Tobago as a subspecies of E. cenchria, and this has been the recognized taxon since then. : Little local belief surrounds this secretive snake, except the usual suspicion that it is poisonous, due to its readiness to bite in self-defense. One of its local names, mapepire velour or velvet mapepire, reflects this. Valued for its beautiful iridescent sheen and its comparatively small adult size, it has been kept as a pet from late in the nineteenth century by collectors; one of them, as already noted, named his pet rainbow boa Jack, inadvertently giving rise to this as a common name (Mole a).

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Fig. 15. Rainbow boa subadult in a tight, defensive “ball.”

Genus: Eunectes Wagler Eunectes Wagler  Eunectes murinus gigas (Latreille ) Huille, Anaconda Plate  : TRINIDAD—UWI , Petite Poole Canal. and juv., . Note: Mole sent many living specimens of anaconda both to the London Zoo at Regents Park (Mole ) and to the Bronx Park Zoo in New York City (Ditmars a, b); it is fairly certain that some specimens must have been deposited in nearby museums. I have not attempted to track down any of these voucher specimens. In the literature, the anaconda is well known and reported from Trinidad (Kingsley ; British Museum [Natural History] ). Mole (b) reports a specimen presented to the “United Services Museum” by a Sir Robert Ker Porter.  (fig. ): Detailed scientific descriptions have been given elsewhere (Emsley ; Murphy ). This is a large, thick-bodied aquatic snake; eyes and nostrils are placed laterally on head, which is slightly wider than the neck. Body is light to dark gray-green, with darker large spots and blotches along the dorsum. Belly is lighter green with black markings. Yellow mottling is under the lower jaw and fore body. Two dark lines traverse the head through the occiput and temporal area, with a lighter stripe between, the color of this stripe being one of the characteristics identifying the subspecies. In Trinidad the stripe is dirty orange. Females are larger and heavier than males. : Trinidad, Venezuela, Colombia, Guianas.  : Huille, huillia, huila, big wheel, anaconda, water boa.

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Fig. 16. Eunectes murinus gigas, huilla, huille (anaconda). Pale color phase adult.

 : One of the most famous snakes in the world due to its reputed and actual size, the anaconda is mainly found associated with rivers, lakes, ponds, and swamps. Superbly adapted to life in this habitat with its very heavy body supported by the water, it has eyes and nostrils placed almost at the top of its thick, blunt head and has mottled, cryptic dorsal coloring. The eyes are reported to shine by reflected light (Fawcett ). It feeds on any prey that it can catch, overcome, and constrict, capturing prey with a swift strike followed by powerful coils thrown around the prey, which is often dragged underwater. The young eat fish and other aquatic vertebrates, graduating with growth to mammalian and avian prey; young in captivity are generally difficult to induce to feed, as was noted by Mole in the last century (Field Naturalists’ Club c). Juvenile anacondas have been caught on fish lines baited with whole freshwater characin fish set for guabines, Hoplias malabaricus, in abandoned water-filled quarries in the Tumpuna–Waller Field area of Trinidad. Opportunistic contact with other aquatic reptiles also results in their being taken as prey—caiman, Caiman crocodilus, and freshwater turtles, Kinosternon scorpioides, are eaten. An anaconda approximately  m long, collected in the Blanquizalles Swamp on the southwestern peninsula of Trinidad, passed out in fecal matter enough dorsal scutes to constitute three hinge-galap turtles, Kinosternon scorpioides. This snake would eat nothing but these turtles in cap-

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tivity, and due to a lack of continued food of this sort available in the Emperor Valley Zoo, it eventually starved to death. Mole (b) confirmed this eating peculiarity by reporting that one of his specimens regurgitated a small “watertortoise.” There is a photograph of an anaconda constricting a caiman in The Land and Wild-Life of South America (Bates :); Worth () and Wehekind () also report Caiman crocodilus being eaten by anacondas. In the case reported by Wehekind, he states that a snake  feet ( m) long had a -foot ( m) “alligator” in its stomach (alligator being the local name for the caiman). Armored catfish have also been taken from the stomach contents of specimens in Guyana (Beebe ). The wide range of food items taken is recorded by Ditmars (a), who found tamandua anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla) claws in the feces of one specimen recently imported to the Bronx Zoo. This snake had large wounds in the head consistent with those a tamandua is capable of inflicting. One specimen in captivity in the Emperor Valley Zoo readily accepted a full-grown feral cat that had been shot as vermin. Even other snakes are suspected prey, as snake teeth have been found in the feces (Mole b), though the anaconda’s own teeth, which are replaced regularly, may be swallowed and become embedded in the prey animal, to be passed undigested in the feces. Rendall (:) reported Mole having informed him that the “Loncheris guianae. Porcupine Rat. (= either Makalata sp. or Procechimys sp.) . . . was the ‘chief food of the large water Pythons [sic]’ and that in their excreta he has found great quantities of their typical spiny bristles.” All other available mammalian prey probably is taken. Mole (b) reported dogs; Kingsley (), de Verteuil (), and Cumberland () reported deer, and he noted that attacks on people had also been recorded. Mole () repeated the Kingsley () tale of an anaconda seizing the dress of a young girl while she was bathing in the Nariva River lagoon and another of an apparent attack on a man cutting grass on the bank of a river. There have been many reports of anacondas killing people. Mole (b) reports that an American collector, S. M. Klages, saw a young Indian boy in Venezuela who had been killed while handling a -foot ( m) anaconda. Natura () and Trinidad Guardian () articles have reported the killing and eating of people in the river-jungles of Brazil; the former report includes a photograph of a truly gigantic anaconda, dead, in the back of a truck, with an enormous bulge in its body, purported to be the swallowed man. No further details are given, nor is a photograph of the contents of the stomach shown. This photograph was obviously circulated in the newspapers, and when it appeared in the Sun magazine, it generated a letter from Mike McNeil () who, using the measurement of the car battery pictured in the tray of the truck where the engorged snake lay, estimated the animal’s length to be  feet ( meters) and not the  ( meters) reported by the Sun. He also raised doubts that the snake had in fact eaten a human, judging from the shape of the bulge in the body.

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Not far outside Georgetown, Guyana, in about the s (John Correia, pers. comm., s), a family named Cuthbert was picnicking near a creek that flowed into one of the larger Guyana rivers. An anaconda attacked a boy and, biting him, held onto him and attempted to drag him into the water, where a constricting coil could perhaps have killed him easily. The boy was rescued by his mother, who stabbed the snake with a cake-cutting knife. The snake released its hold, though the boy sustained many punctures, cuts, and lacerations, the scars of which were still visible as he attained adulthood. More recently Perry () reported the older Ditmars () story that “a passenger on a ferry [crossing a lagoon in Trinidad] dived overboard for a bath” and a hungry anaconda “seized the man by his single undergarment, tearing it off while its owner escaped.” Ferries once were used to cross both the Nariva River and the Ortoire River in east Trinidad, but they were replaced with bridges in the late s. It would seem that large anacondas—and they do grow to impressive size and length—must have been responsible for some deaths and unresolved disappearances, though no evidence exists for such an event in Trinidad. In The World of the Jaguar Richard Perry () gives many fantastic accounts of reported anaconda sizes and of the human injuries and deaths attributed to these snakes. Murphy and Henderson (), attempting to put all these stories into perspective, found no verifiable cases of anacondas killing and consuming people. They suggest that one “attack,” on field worker Maria del C. Munoz, had it been successful, would probably have resulted in her being eaten. Though almost totally aquatic, and reported to live in holes in river banks and swamp mud (Mole , quoting Beebe and Beebe ), anacondas often bask in direct sunlight on the banks of streams and jungle backwater pools or on branches over water or near their hideaways. In , traveling by small boat up the tidal mouth of the Commewijne River in Suriname, I was shown places where anacondas were often seen basking among the stilt roots of the fringing mangroves exposed by the fall of the water level in this estuary at low tide. Young and juvenile anacondas in captivity often perch on branches supplied in the cage. There has been a belief that, so perched, the anaconda strikes downward or falls upon its prey, behavior that is more imaginary than actual, though this belief actually forms part of the definition of “anaconda” in the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (). This idea may have originated from travelers’ tales, such as those told by explorer Paul Fountain in  and quoted in Murphy and Henderson (); these authors discount such a feeding strategy for the anaconda. These snakes have been noted to mate in December and January, young being born in July and August. Up to  young have been reported, between  and  cm long at birth. As noted, the young are difficult to induce to feed in captivity, but will eventually take small mice or chicks. One report tallies  young (West India

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Committee Circular ), and Ditmars () reported  young born to a specimen  feet long. Murphy and Henderson (:) tabulate records of reproductive data for the anaconda and list Belluomini and Hoge’s  record of . The spectacular mating rituals of this giant snake have recently been reported from the llanos of Venezuela (Kemper ; Murphy and Henderson ). Called a “breeding ball,” this behavior has also been noted for the two preceding species of boas, Boa constrictor and Corallus ruschenbergerii. As the llanos grasslands are drying out, these giant boas gather in the receding ponds and streams; as many as  males have been noted attending and attempting to copulate with a female that has signaled her readiness to mate by laying down a scent trail. Eager males follow this trail until they catch up with the female, whereupon a frenzied struggle to be the first to mate ensues. This behavior undoubtedly occurs in the drying Nariva Swamp of Trinidad, but to date I have not collected any such report from the people who live in the swamp and utilize it for their livelihood. As regards the maximum size to which it grows, no snake has been the subject of more speculation, myth, and imagination than the anaconda. Precisely because of their immense size, few large, accurately measured specimens have been preserved or kept in museums. They are usually reduced to a skull, skeleton, and skin, which cannot supply an accurate record of the length or bulk of the snake in life. In an attempt to settle the recurring question of the possible maximum size of the anaconda, there has been a long-standing reward offer of $, from the New York Zoological Society for any snake that exceeds  feet and that can be delivered alive to the Bronx Zoo (Richardson ). This type of reward is not something new. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Theodore Roosevelt offered $, for the skin and/or vertebral column of a snake over  feet long (Perry ). Mole (b) tells of an article in the December , , issue of the Field in which a famous animal dealer named Jamrach offered a reward of , pounds sterling to anyone who brought him a snake  feet long, and , pounds for one of  feet in length. Needless to say, these rewards have never been claimed, in spite of the many tales of anacondas and pythons that far exceed the required  feet. However, some very big snakes have been recorded by approximate estimation and by accurate measurements—which cases have led to further speculation and exaggeration. A  report in the Jamaican newspaper the Gleaner (Mole ) of an unidentified giant snake  yards ( feet) long, killed in Costa Rica (outside the known range of the anaconda) and surmised by Mole to be an anaconda, would seem to fall into the realm of pure exaggeration or fantasy. Boulenger () states as his reported maximum length of this species  m (. feet), while Fawcett () listed  feet for specimens in the Amazon and  feet for one killed in Paraguay. Ditmars () recorded a specimen at a more realistic  feet long and  inches in circumference, weighing  pounds (see

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Fig. 17. “Big Annie” (Eunectes murinus gigas, huilla, huille) sent from R. R. Mole to Raymond Ditmars. (Photograph by R. Ditmars or L. Wehekind)

fig. , “Big Annie”). This specimen may have been shipped to Ditmars at the Bronx Park Zoo by Mole, who exported snakes from Trinidad—and possibly from British Guiana and Venezuela, as his price list (Mole ) quotes prices for species not recorded from Trinidad (Ditmars ). This same specimen gave birth to  young with an average length of  inches. Another,  feet long, had  young, approximately  inches long (Ditmars ). H. M. Tomlinson (:) summed matters up well when he said that the sucuruju of the Amazon “is  feet long in his legend, but spoils a good story through reducing himself by half when he is actually killed.” Mole () and Oliver () give details of many records of anacondas large and small, but the one that has been widely accepted as the most authentic maximum size ever reliably measured is a specimen stunned with gunshots on the upper Orinoco River in eastern Colombia. It was measured by Roberto Lamon with a steel surveyor’s tape at . feet. This snake, being only wounded, escaped back into the river. Murphy and Henderson (), however, having investigated all the sources of this record, have stated that the snake in question was “most likely less than  meters” not the  meters (. feet) reported. In Trinidad, lengths of up to  to  feet have been reported from the lagoons (Nariva) of the east coast. Mole (b) reported that a Dr. Mitchell had said that his godfather, General David Stuart, had killed a large snake in either  or , which measured “ feet long in its skin.” We are left to speculate as to

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whether General Stuart meant that the snake was this almost world-record length while still in its skin (alive or dead), or whether he meant, in the idiom of that time, that the removed skin measured  feet. A boa constrictor  feet,  inches long in life yielded a skin of  feet,  inch (Field Naturalists’ Club a), and another specimen  feet long when alive was  feet long once skinned (Field Naturalists’ Club b). A further illustration of this is a report I received from an American Peace Corps worker whom I had met during a  trip Elliot Olton and I made up to the river town of Bartica, at the confluence of the Essiquibo and Mazaruni rivers in Guyana. Bill Marshall wrote to me that people had shot and killed an anaconda that measured . feet long and weighed  pounds, which weight included  pounds of bush pig. In a photograph of the skin, missing one foot from the head end and eight inches from the tail, it is held up by several boys; assuming the boys are about . feet tall, the skin length could not be more than  feet, . feet shy of the reported length (Marshall and Marshall ). Skin length, represented as the total length of the still living or freshly killed snake, has led to many errors in the records, just as misidentification or the application of the names boa constrictor or python to any large snake, with attendant lack of knowledge of habits and habitat, had an anaconda Eunectes murinus holding the world record of . feet for the boa constrictor, Boa constrictor (Boos ). A newspaper photograph (Daily Mirror ) showed an anaconda reported to be  feet long. It had been shot in the Waller Field–Valencia area, after it was surprised sunning itself in a dried-up pool. It was said to have swallowed a heifer calf. Using the measurement of the average human forearm of one of the hunters in the photo, which is in the same plane as the looped snake (see fig. ), a

Fig. 18. Eunectes murinus gigas. Anaconda reported to have swallowed a heifer calf. (From Daily Mirror Newspaper, Aug. 14, 1964)

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measurement of only approximately  feet was obtained, by the most generous stretch. Unless the dead heifer calf had been cut out of the dead snake before the photo was taken, it seems unlikely that the snake ate it; there is no bulge in the snake’s body as evidence of this meal. For the ultimate in records of enormous anacondas, one should refer to chapters  and  of Richard Perry’s () The World of the Jaguar, for giants too numerous and too fantastic to recount here. trinidad distribution: Anacondas occur today chiefly in the estuary lagoons of Mayaro and the Nariva Swamp, and swamp-forest hinterlands, and in pockets in the Blanquizalles Swamp on the south coast of the southwest peninsula. Though there would seem to be suitable habitats available to them in the Caroni River drainage and the Caroni Swamp, these snakes have not been found there, nor have they ever been reported from there (Mole ). Mole, however, reported them (b) from the eastern and southern areas of Trinidad and, amazingly, said they were found  or  miles from the town of San Fernando in the southwest of the island. With the expansion of human habitation since , anacondas certainly are not found as widely as they once were. They were reported in the mouth of the North Oropouche River (Vincent ). Abandoned gravel quarries in the watershed area between east and west Trinidad, south of the Northern Range, have provided suitable habitats, and several fairly large -foot specimens have been captured and killed there. The possibility of the Caroni Swamp eventually being colonized by anacondas is indicated by a specimen having been collected in the upper reaches of the Caroni River in the Piarco area. Two more specimens were collected in the Valencia Junction area, and a third was killed there, at the bridge, with a full-grown black dog— complete with collar—in the stomach. This Valencia Junction area is only about  km from the river, which runs west into the Caroni River drainage. This retreat in the south of the island and spread in the east toward favorable habitat in the west—as well as the reports of anacondas washing up from Venezuela on to the south coast at Cedros and the east coast at Mayaro (Field Naturalists’ Club c; Urich, quoted in Medem )—would seem to indicate that comparatively speaking, the anaconda is a fairly recent immigrant to Trinidad. And immigration continues. A large anaconda was killed in  at Galeota Point, on the beach in a large raft of water hyacinths; every year great quantities of such material wash over from the Orinoco River (Underwood ). An immature specimen was brought alive to me in October,  (see plate ). It was reported (Bassant ) that an unidentified snake was captured by a diver near an oil-drilling Trinmar platform, near Venezuela. Though described as approximately  feet in length, the snake in the photograph shown is clearly a young anaconda, about  feet long. This record is possibly another specimen that was washed out of a flooding Venezuelan river at the height of the rainy season in September of that year.

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A juvenile specimen was also collected from a small estuary lagoon north of Matura Bay on the east coast, this being the farthest north collecting record for the species. No anacondas have ever been recorded or collected on Tobago. early accounts from trinidad: Known locally as the huille or huillia—pronounced “wheel” or “wheela”—the anaconda is one of the best known, if least seen, local snakes—except of course by the people who make their homes in the snakes’ preferred habitat of the Nariva Swamp in the northeast of the island. It is in this swamp and from its surrounding lagoons, estuaries, ferry crossings, rivers, and beaches that most reports, sightings, and stories emanate. At first blush the local name may appear to be a French patois derivative of the French word for oil, huile—the shiny smooth scales do give off an oily sheen— and pronunciation seems to be behind an attempt to Anglicize it into “big wheel” (Worth ). However, the name would more naturally seem to be derived from the Carib language ioulia, noted by Breton (:) as being “autre [serpent] noire et jaune” (another black and yellow snake). Breton was compiling a seventeenthcentury Carib-French dictionary, and although we have no clues as to how the Caribs of that time (mainly from the islands of Guadeloupe and “autres circonnoisines de l’amérique”) pronounced words, the ioulia interpretation is closer to the modern name than other attempts to explain its origin. It should also be noted that native names for local flora and fauna are common and were established before Europeans arrived on Trinidad and borrowed them. Whatever the true origin of its local name, the snake’s presence was noted in the earliest writings on Trinidad, though use of the then popular name of boa constrictor for any large snake has led to quite a few misidentifications and confusions of the true boa constrictor Boa constrictor and the anaconda Eunectes murinus gigas—over the ensuing years. As noted in the Boa constrictor species account, it is amazing how the early writings about wildlife, especially snakes, have become fixed in the subsequent oral tradition of Trinidadian legends, myths, and tall stories. Books—histories, social commentaries, travel guides, fiction—were a more important form of entertainment before radio, cinema, and television, and from those who could afford them and read them, the stories were told and passed on as gospel truth, and are often repeated up to the present. In , Sir Andrew Halliday told of boa constrictors  feet long being killed. Based on what we know from modern records, Halliday’s “boa constrictors” were anacondas. A year later, E. L. Joseph published his History of Trinidad (b), in which he relates that he assisted in killing a “boa constrictor” measuring  feet long. Joseph, prone to exaggeration, at least on this topic, relates that an even larger specimen was taken in the mountains above the city of Port of Spain—an unlikely habitat for anacondas, and an unlikely size for a true boa constrictor (Boos ). Day (:), using for the first time the local name, reports that

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“in the Oropouche, enormous water boas, called Huilla, are found. These formidable serpents suspend themselves from the trees overhanging the river, and drop upon whatever prey may pass beneath them. . . . De Verteuil had the skin of one sent to him by his brother, and it measured seventeen feet seven inches.” Day thereby set in motion in Trinidad two popular myths. The first is the uncharacteristic arboreal habit and feeding mechanism of anacondas, which Day may only have been repeating from the published accounts of his time. The second is that a snake’s live length can be judged from the flayed skin. Dr. J. Court (in de Verteuil ) puts a scientific name to the “huillia”—Boa murina—and though he (or de Verteuil) distinguishes it from Boa constrictor by its habitat preference for rivers and ponds, he continues to confuse the two species when writing about their size and feeding habits, telling for instance of a boa constrictor  feet long—obviously an anaconda (de Verteuil :): “Some of our serpents attain very large dimensions. The boa constrictor may reach the length of twenty two feet, and will swallow agoutis, lapos, and young deer; a huilia, killed in the river Cunapo measured seventeen feet eleven inches; it however attains to twenty and even twenty four feet.” In the mid-nineteenth century, several general natural history books were popular; one of the best was a series put out by Cassell’s. Well-to-do homes, schools, and libraries were sure to have had these volumes. In one such volume (I have been unable to establish the exact date of publication), there is an illustration of “The Anaconda” in full attack, dropping down from a tree resembling a date palm (Phoenix sp.) upon a bull (fig. ). From the drawing, the bull can only be an Asian water buffalo (Bubalis bubalis). Unlikely as it was that the snake shown could actually kill and consume the buffalo—itself not introduced into the realm of the anaconda, at least in Trinidad and Brazil, until around  (National Research Council )—this illustration came to reflect the feeding habits and abilities of this snake. And it had two other effects as regards the written and oral accounts of the huillia in Trinidad. It supplied another name, anaconda, and another myth—the snake’s ability to swallow cows, which were important as beasts of burden and givers of milk and were an object of reverence for the increasing population of Hindus brought by indentureship to Trinidad starting in . It took a while until the second fantastic legend about the huilia was seeded. Kingsley (), well read as he must have been, noted for the first time the name anaconda for a huillia or water boa in the “Zoological Garden in Trinidad,” and he stated that the “true boa” was the “Mahajuel” (Boa constrictor) and that the water boa, huillia, or anaconda was Eunectes murinus. Kingsley displayed great knowledge in listing for the first time for Trinidad the Latin binomial for the anaconda. Not only must he have had access to Gray’s  paper, wherein the combination Eunectes murina was used for the first time,

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Fig. 19. Eunectes murinus gigas and bull. The birth of a myth. (From Cassell’s Popular Natural History, ca. 1860)

but he corrected the specific name to conform to the same gender as the generic name—Eunectes. Contrary to what Boulenger states in his Catalogue of Snakes in the British Museum (:), Gray used Eunectes murina, and not Eunectes murinus, in his “Synopsis of the Species of the Class Reptilia” (:). It is possible that Kingsley may have had access to Duméril and Bibron’s Erpétologie générale ou Histoire naturelle complète des Reptiles (–), where Boulenger says the correct binomial occurs (appearing in Duméril and Bibron , :), or to Wagler’s (:) “Naturliches System der Amphibien, etc.,” which uses Eunectes murinus for the first time (Stimson ). Kingsley too was wont to repeat snake stories, relating that one specimen was killed in the river behind the Cocal, measured at  feet, and found to have a whole kid inside it. A goat’s kid is a far cry from a full-grown water buffalo. He also relates how three young women were bathing in the lagoon not far from the mouth of the Nariva River when one of them was seized by an anaconda, and had it not bitten into her loose bathing costume, instead of her body, she might not have been saved. The latter tale and another about an anaconda stretching across a river from

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bank to bank have been retold many times by subsequent authors. Collens (), using the name anaconda, or water boa, tells of specimens from  to  feet long and relates that they reduce their prey, pigs and lambs, “to a mash or pulp, and gulp it down forthwith. This does away with the work of mastication, at any rate the teeth are brought very little into play.” Collens obviously never saw an anaconda or any other constricting snake while it was feeding and was only repeating the popular myths and beliefs of the day. To illustrate the great lengths to which these snakes were supposed to grow, Collens repeated Kingsley’s account of the bank-to-bank snake, leaving readers to imagine the width of the river; as the legend was applied in later years, the monster snake was stretched instead across a road. Im Thurm (), too, was stocking the store of myth and fantasy about the anaconda. Though his account was about his experiences in British Guiana, it was more than likely popularly read by educated Trinidadians and applied to Trinidad. Im Thurm’s skinned anaconda measured  feet, and his story of striking matches against the skin of a snake, thinking it was part of a house, is reflected in the no less popular Trinidadian hunter’s story of a weary, lost woodsman mistaking a giant sleeping snake for a convenient log to sit upon, even building a warming fire against the moss-covered animal, which wakes up because of the heat of the flames against its body. Im Thurm may have been repeating or embellishing the story told in one of Waterton’s essays, published in three series between  and , when a man made the mistake of sitting upon one of these giant snakes, mistaking it for a log (see Wood :). The snake/log story is still current in Trinidad (Garcia ). One of the most popular travel books published in the nineteenth century was Wanderings in South America by Charles Waterton. Editions were printed from  to , and in this work is the genesis of one of the most enduring myths concerning the anaconda. In a modern reprint (), Waterton tells of a “Boa”  feet long; this seems to be a popular length for giant boa constrictors, which in fact seldom exceed  feet (Boos ). The snake, which had been killed by a friend called Brouwer, had “a pair of stag’s horns in his mouth.” Waterton concludes that having swallowed the stag, the snake found the horns too much or too wide to swallow, and thus was awaiting the digestion of the rest of the carcass. Up de Graf (, in Perry ) goes one step further, describing as his personal experience seeing an anaconda with horns protruding from the side of its mouth, rearing up  feet from the ground to entangle the horns in vines clinging to a tree and then withdrawing, leaving the putrid skull complete with horns and “two or three vertebrae.” He goes on to relate that he now realized he had the solution to the puzzle he had encountered once or twice before—the head of a deer hanging from a tree: these had been placed there by anacondas unable to swallow the antlers. This fantasy that Up de Graf imbues with his personal expe-

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rience, as having happened to one of the only four anacondas he ever encountered (Perry :), he had rather bought wholesale from Waterton, who bought it from his Dutch friend Brouwer (Waterton :). Combined with other stories already noted, it has been retold and embellished to end up in Trinidad as the oft-repeated story of bulls with long spreading horns—the water buffalo variety—being taken, killed, and eaten by anacondas, all except the horns (Boos ). The bulls are said to be seized by the nose or nostrils while drinking, to be pulled into the water and drowned (Guardsman ). None of these horn-excluding swallowings take into consideration that most prey items of all snakes are swallowed head first. How the bulky body of a deer or buffalo is swallowed hind end first to exclude the horns alone (not the head and horns) is conveniently ignored, as is the fact that little or no digestion can take place in the neck region of the snake, where the prey item will remain if the horns, left outside, prevent swallowing into the stomach, midway down the body of the snake. These accounts were undoubtedly partially generated and kept alive by the sensational and perhaps tongue-in-cheek reporting in the Trinidad Guardian (a [], b []), which claimed that Trinidad’s “Monster Serpent” roared like a lion and ate cows. There was even a photograph in another report a fortnight later, showing what purported to be the Nariva “Huilla Monster” competing for fame with the Loch Ness monster, both illustrations showing the usual uncharacteristic coils or humps protruding vertically above the surfaces of the Nariva Swamp and Loch Ness. This story and photographs were rerun  years later with no corrections or explanatory editing (Trinidad Guardian a, b). A lot more blame must be laid at Waterton’s door. He relates that the Spaniards of the “Oroonoque” (Orinoco) affirmed that the anacondas there grew to  or  feet and did destroy and eat “the largest bull.” There the snake is called “Mata-toro” or bull killer. Trinidad, after all, was once a Spanish colony, and trade in beef cattle from the Orinoco shipping port of Ciudad Bolívar continued until the early twentieth century. Not only did live cattle come to Trinidad, but legends and myths accompanied them, brought by the men who herded the cattle and told the stories. Another popular tale (Columbine , in Port of Spain Gazette ) involves the noise made by the anacondas lashing the water at night with their tails, “producing a noise like the smashing of a cart whip.” Im Thurm’s () anacondas perch in trees, sleeping and snoring in a manner “plainly audible.” Not quite up to the loudness described by Columbine are the “muffled choking sighs” described by Beebe and Beebe (), as water fills and subsides from the under-bank holes occupied by anacondas in the swamps. Mole () says the inhabitants of the eastern Trinidadian swamp believe that anacondas are responsible for the loud noises heard coming from the swamp at night.

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Trinidad has always been a melting pot for peoples, races, and cultures, a crossroads through which many things pass, leaving residues and shadows behind to enrich and entertain the gullible. None of these writers could have told these tales with conviction had they observed the feeding habits and food preferences of living anacondas in the wild. In any event, when R. R. Mole and F. W. Urich began to publish in , both singly and together, there was a rich store of taxonomic, scientific, anecdotal, and mythical information available to them about the anaconda or huillia, Eunectes murinus. Mole (b, ) encapsulated much of what had been written previously about this snake and set about trying to dispel the nonsense with fact, collaborating with Raymond Ditmars of the New York Zoological Society, Boulenger of the British Museum, and Boettger from the Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As earlier noted, he sent a large specimen dubbed Big Annie to the Bronx Zoo. Mole recorded actual measurements of  feet,  inches, and  feet,  inches, the latter snake weighing  pounds (a). His observations (Mole b; Field Naturalists’ Club b) led him to discount the then popular belief that snakes covered their prey with slime before swallowing, as had been described in Cassell’s Natural History (ca. :) and by Sir Robert Ker Porter, who had sent a specimen of anaconda to the “United Services Museum” (Mole b). Mole (Field Naturalists’ Club c) also noted that at times these snakes are difficult to feed in captivity, a problem that still sometimes plagues herpetologists today. Both Mole () and Strimple () give explanations for the species name, murinus. Mole opines that it refers to or is translated as “of rats,” or “feeding on rats,” to include the large rodents that Seba () listed as “rat d’Amerique”— the lappe or paca (Agouti paca) and the capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris). Strimple suggests that the translation of murinus as “mouse gray” probably refers to the overall coloration of anacondas, especially when they are about to shed their skin. Both explanations seem a little far-fetched, and we may never know what Linnaeus () meant when he described the anaconda as Boa murina. Lindblad () gives an explanation of the origin of anaconda, saying it appears to have originated in India from the combination of Tamil words anai (elephant) and kolra (killer), but he fails to explain how this combination, which may have been used for the Indian python, Python molurus, made the leap to Eunectes murinus of South America and Trinidad. The Oxford English Dictionary (, :) states that anacondaia is “not now a native name in Ceylon” and notes the Tamil aik’k’ona—translated as “having killed an elephant.” Mole (b) says that in Brazil the huila is called anaconda, “a name applied by the Cinghalese, from whom the Portuguese got it.” There is a remote possibility that— like the name boa constrictor, a common name used for Eunectes, Python, and

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Boa (Ditmars ) and which eventually became fixed as the common name (coincidentally or conveniently) of Boa constrictor—the name anaconda, originating in India, may have referred to any large snake and may thus have been applied to and remained with Eunectes. These statements seem to be supported by the entries for anaconda in the Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (), which states that anaconda is probably a modification of the “Singhalese henakanday green whip snake . . . understood to be a name for the python . . . and an archaic name for a python of Ceylon [Sri Lanka],” later extended to “any large constricting snake.” The Oxford English Dictionary (, :) states that anaconda was “originally applied (by English writers) to a ‘very large and terrible snake’ of Ceylon” and then “made by Daudin (? through erroneous identification, or mistake as to the source of a specimen) the specific name of a large South American Boa (Boa murina Linn., B. aquatica Neuwied., B. anacondo Daud., Eunectes murinus Wagler, Gray).” Up to , Court (in de Verteuil ) was using huillia and not anaconda. Cassell’s Natural History, published in about , uses anaconda, and Kingsley ( edition) used it, as do subsequent authors to the present. The name anaconda is also used for a tree, Cordia sebestina, though Harry Louis (:) does not indicate on which Caribbean island this local name is used. Honychurch () says it is grown as an ornamental in Antigua, St. Martin, and St. Thomas, but it is also found in Trinidad (Williams and Williams ). Anacondas have been illustrated in recent works on Trinidad (Lindblad ; Boos and Quesnel ). In both cases a large specimen was taken from the collection of the Emperor Valley Zoo into the wild and photographed. The difficulties of travel in the natural habitat of the Trinidadian anaconda, the Nariva Swamp, and the rarity of wild sightings, made necessary this excursion into deception; Lindblad’s description of the fortuitous finding of the anaconda pictured in his book is a case of artistic license. With the infusion of indentured East Indian labor into Trinidad beginning in  (Brereton ), some Asian customs were transplanted as well. Vividly illustrating this is a photograph in the National Geographic (Critchell ) of a Hindu mystic in Trinidad with a small anaconda looped around his neck in lieu of the more familiar cobra or python. The Trinidadian myth of a giant snake woman, Mama Glo, Mama D’Glo, or Mama de l’eau (Water Mother), is usually illustrated to depict an anaconda or huillia (Kimme :–; Codallo, in Gayadeen ). The legend is that she cracks her tail loudly and that she chases women who pollute village streams (Kimme ; Gayadeen ). She also combs her hair with a golden comb, which if found brings riches. In some legends Mama Glo is an old woman and her jeweled mirror and magic comb are given to her by river creatures (Reyes ).

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The Trinidad folk belief in Mama Glo may have had its origin in the beliefs of the West African tribe known as the Ekoi. In southern Nigeria in the River Kwa and adjacent lagoons, there is a goddess called Nimm who takes the shape of a huge snake that can be called up by women worshipers to destroy offenders (Hambly ). The Kalabari people also worship a water divinity or water spirit that takes the form of the python found in this southern portion of the former Dogon Division of the River State of Nigeria. These water spirits—Owu—live in the middle of a lake, where they can be heard crowing like roosters in the mangrove islands in the lake. The snakes are believed to be the husband of the divinity Owomekaso by the people of the Calabar Owome group in the Abonnema, Babana, and Buguma regions (Tasie ). The motif of the mythical crowing snake and of living snakes having some form of sexual connection with either a mythical or a divine human female recurs time and time again in some form in beliefs and folklore throughout the Antilles and to some extent in Trinidad. As also discussed elsewhere (see Oxybelis aeneus species account), the sexual connection of humans with snakes is not confined to the antiquities of European myth or legend but is present in the tribal folklore of the Caribs of Dominica and is reflected in the tale of the Carib woman “who had a child by a boa” (Taylor ). How the woman came to bear this human-headed snake was due to the disguise as a man by the Dominican Island boa constrictor, a reversal of the disguise of a manlike god—Zeus—as a bull to Europa and a swan to Leda. Blended together in the mythical Mama Glo are the belief of the Caribs of Dominica in this “Master Boa,” who has a crest of diamond, crows like a cock, and has in the middle of his forehead a brilliant carbuncle, a jewel, that must be removed when he wants to drink (Taylor :); the perpetuation of his human-headed offspring born to a human woman; and other legends of Maman de l’Eau, the Water Mamma, protector of all fish (Taylor ). Half-human, half-snake myths are a common theme dating back to the origins of ancient dynasties. Ancient Thebes and Athens had their myths of these creatures; the father of Alexander the Great was believed to have been a snake, favored by his mother Olympias. In modern India, in the Punjab, members of the snake tribe still believe in the transformation of snakes into men (Fielding ). The West African Dogon people’s creator-god Amma gave birth to half-human, half-snake ancestral figures called Nommo, which had both male and female characteristics and were described as human from the waist up, with gleaming green lower bodies (Dening )— an almost perfect representation of the appearance of Mama Glo, the halfwoman, half-snake mythical being still encountered in the folk beliefs of Trinidad. Taylor (:, :–) relates that the Dominican boa, known as Tête Chien (dog’s head), is seen by the Caribs there as “big, big, big, has a crest on his head, and crows just like a cock.” There is a similar legend about a snake that inhabits the deep woods of Trinidad, a mythical serpent said to have a comb

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on its head like a domestic fowl and to crow like a rooster. It is difficult to ascertain whether this is a folk belief transplanted into Trinidad from the northern Antilles, or from West Africa, or a relict of tribal Arawakan/Cariban folklore. Trinidad has a more impressive roster of snakes than does Dominica, but in both places, as in Africa, this ability to crow is fixed in the largest and most obvious animal, the Tete Chien, Boa constrictor orophias, and Python sebae. No particular kind of snake in Trinidad is specified to be the one that crows and is adorned with the crest or comb, for to do so would be to render the tale easily disproved by capture and examination of a living specimen. The crowing, crowned snake remains a mystery, a creature of legends told by a dwindling number of old people who may or may not believe the tales they tell. Perhaps it has turned up in the poem “The Serpent” (Roethke ), about a snake that, against all advice from his fellow animals, persisted in trying to sing:

And the Woods resounded with many a shriek As the birds flew off to the end of the week. The folk legend of a giant water snake god(ess) may also involve elements introduced from motifs brought to Trinidad by indentured laborers from India in the mid-nineteenth century. As Rawson (:) notes: “Another motif is the snake, which (even in areas where direct Indianizing influence was not strong) is frequently combined with imagery derived from the cult of the powerful, magical Hindu naga: often many-headed, this serpent is the patron and guardian of water and treasure, both material and spiritual.” But if legends are legion, anacondas themselves continue to be rare in Trinidad and are under threat from destruction of their prime habitat in the Nariva Swamp and other freshwater and brackish mangrove swamps. Some new habitats have been created. Large inland ponds and lakes now exist in abandoned quarries in the Cumuto-Tumpuna area, south of the town of Arima, and supply suitable areas into which anacondas have migrated, though they are more often than not killed when encountered by hunters, fishermen, or gravel extractors working over these abandoned gravel pits. The stretch of low-lying terrain separating the rivers that flow east from those that flow west over the lowlands between the North and Central ranges of mountains covers only a matter of a few hundred meters, and though anacondas have made it into the headwaters of the Caroni drainage, they have not succeeded in running the gauntlet of industry, agriculture, and pollution that is the Caroni River to arrive at another prime habitat, the Caroni Swamp on the west coast and fronting the Gulf of Paria. With time this may yet happen.

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Family: Colubridae—Harmless Snakes Colubridae Cope 1866 This is the largest family of snakes, found in all the continents except Antarctica, and on many oceanic and off-shore islands. The Colubridae are what can be described as “typical” snakes. There are twenty-four genera of colubrid snakes in Trinidad and Tobago, grouped into three subfamilies based on some common morphological characteristics they share with one another. The grouping used below is adapted from Dowling (ms , in press). Family: Colubridae Subfamily: Xenodontinae Genus: Clelia Erythrolamprus Helicops Hydrops Liophis Oxyrhopus Pseudoboa Siphlophis Thamnodynastes Tripanurgos Subfamily: Dipsadinae Genus: Atractus Dipsas Imantodes Leptodeira Ninia Sibon Subfamily: Colubrinae Genus: Chironius Drymarchon Leptophis Mastigodryas Oxybelis Pseustes Spilotes Tantilla

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Fig. 20. Typical head scalation of family Colubridae (after Chippaux 1986): R = rostral, IN = internasal, PF = prefrontal, F = frontal, P = parietal, T = temporal, SuO = supraocular, PrO = preocular, PO = postocular, SO = subocular, L = loreal, N = nasal, UL = upper labial, LL = lower labial, M = mental

Subfamily: Xenodontinae Genus: Clelia Fitzinger Clelia Fitzinger  Clelia clelia clelia (Daudin ) Black Cribo, Mussurana Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (Mole and Urich a; Boulenger ); SMF f (Boettger ); BMNH (Barbour ); FMNH , USNM  (Murphy ).            (see appendix ): The neck is indistinct. Maximum size is . m (Mole ). The adult has smooth, slate gray or blue-black scales on the dorsal surface. The belly is pearl white. When close to sloughing, the skin is gray-blue. Hatchlings and immatures are deep red, the fore part of the head being a shiny black, with a dirty white or yellow band on the nape and neck. Young and immatures are similar in color and pattern to those of Pseudoboa neuwiedii, the undivided subcaudals of this species being a good diagnostic character; Clelia has paired subcaudals. Details of scalation are given in Emsley (). : Trinidad; tropical Central and South America. Murphy (:) lists this species as being found on Monos Island based on Anon () (= Orde ), who is identified as the author of that article. Orde was writing about the yellow-

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tail or Trinidad cribo, Drymarchon corais, and not the black cribo, Clelia clelia. This latter species has not been recorded on Monos Island. Murphy (:) notes the common name cribo or clibo being applied to Drymarchon, Clelia, and possibly Spilotes. Clelia clelia was recently reported from Chacachacare Island (REAL ), but this is a misidentification of Pseudoboa. local names: Black cribo; cribo; clibo (Orde , Roosevelt ); buda, vidua (possibly from the Spanish viuda, “widow”); mussurana; mussurama (Ditmars a, b); mussuvana (Oliver ); mustarangue (Emsley ); moon snake (Greenhall ).           : A powerful constricting colubrid, this snake feeds mainly on other snakes, easily overpowering even the venomous pit vipers (Mole ) that share its range, seemingly impervious to the bites and poison delivered by these snakes. Mole (a), however, noted that though one specimen fed readily on a tree boa (Corallus) and a fer-de-lance (Bothrops), he had been informed by Brazil (Brazil ) that Clelia “succumbs to the bite of the venomous coral snakes.” Ditmars (a) reported this to be so as well. This is confirmed by Abalos and Náder (), who found that a Pseudoboa cloelia (= Clelia clelia) had died due to the bite of a coral snake, Micrurus lemniscatus frontalis; included is a photograph of a stricken Clelia after it had been bitten and envenomated by Micrurus. There is a photo of Clelia eating Bothrops in plate  of Mole’s (b) “The Trinidad Snakes.” The black cribo scavenges carrion reptiles and also occasionally takes small mammals, birds, and lizards. Clelia is an opisthoglyph, or back-fanged snake, having enlarged grooved teeth at the back of the upper jaw. The potency of its bite has not been tested, but it may play a role in subduing prey. Though this snake is generally rare and shy, and is not known ever to have bitten a human, caution is advised in its handling and husbandry because of the large maximum size to which it grows and the fact that fatal bites have been recorded from other species in this group of backfanged snakes. Black cribos can climb, but they are mainly terrestrial, preferring to burrow through the underbrush and leaf litter seeking prey that share this habitat. They are mainly nocturnal, becoming active at dusk, though specimens have been collected foraging during the day. They are egg layers, up to  eggs having been noted in one clutch (Abalos and Náder ) and  in another (Mole ). The young are startlingly different from the adults, being bright red on the body, with a black head and yellowwhite nape. These young are rare and seldom collected. Two freshly hatched specimens were collected in March of  and . Egg laying has been recorded in March as well (Mole ), and hatching times of three and four months have been recorded in Brazil. These bright red juveniles differ from those of the related Pseudoboa neuwiedii in having a wider white nuchal band, being darker red, and

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having divided subcaudal scales (fig. ). There are also other differing scale count characteristics upon detailed examination of both species. In light of this similarity, it is interesting to note that the records of Clelia in Tobago were discovered by Hardy (, ) to be based on misidentified specimens of Pseudoboa. Clelia is extremely nervous in captivity, regurgitating its food—often another snake almost as large as its own bulk—upon the slightest disturbance. Though some specimens have been converted to feeding on mammalian prey, individuals often starve to death unless given adequate reptilian food. The species in Grenada has been known to eat rodents (Groome ). Allan Rodriguez reported that he observed a large specimen of Clelia clelia eat all the young from the nest of an unidentified native rat, which event is similar to the one reported by Teixeira et al. () when the young of the brown four-eyed opossum, Metachirus nudicaudatus, were consumed. One also was collected on Grenada while in mortal combat with a mongoose. The Clelia was probably the aggressor, based on stomach contents of mongooses, which were found to contain only a few small snakes (Williams ). Clelia has been discovered to be host to three genera of endoparasites (Everard ): the acanthocephalans Oligacanthorhynchus and Onicola and the pentastomid Kiricephalus. Riley and Self () described a new species of lungworm found in a Clelia specimen from Trinidad as Kiricephalus clelii, though they refer to the snake as “the pseudoboa,” a name by which Clelia clelia is seldom known.

Fig. 21. Clelia clelia clelia, black cribo. Hatchling/immature. Brighter red and larger white nape band distinguish this species from Pseudoboa.

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Clelia has always been uncommon. It is considered rare by many collectors and may even be considered endangered by some authors (Groombridge , ). Its snake-eating habits have earned it the name in some quarters as “the hunts man’s friend” (Guardsman ). Genus: Erythrolamprus Wagler Erythrolamprus Wagler Erythrolamprus aesculapii (Linnaeus ) False Coral Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH var. L (e) (Boulenger :); West Indies, (?) poss. Trinidad (Emsley ); AMNH , Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley (Oliver ). : This is a cylindrical, smooth-scaled snake; maximum size is . m (Hardy and Boos ). The body has red bands with irregular pairs of black rings enclosing single dirty white or yellowish white rings. Numbers of bands and rings recorded are:  red and  pairs of black rings (Trinidad), AMNH ;  red and . pairs of black rings (Suriname), Moonen et al. (, photo);  red and  pairs of black rings (Peru), Campbell and Lamar (, photo);  red and . pairs of black rings (Suriname), Campbell and Lamar (, photo);  red and  pairs of black rings (no locality), Freiberg (, photo). The head pattern consists of () a band of white, variably obscured by black spots covering the nasals and the prefrontals, then a black band from a line drawn immediately in front of the eyes to the posterior of the frontal, followed by another white band extending to the nape, where a broad black band separates it from the first red band; or () a white head with a black band crossing, level with the eyes, and another on the nape. The white nasal area may have black blotching. The paired black rings separated by white rings then commence. Scales in the red and white areas on the dorsal surface may be tipped with black at their posterior edges. AMNH  has  ventral and  subcaudal scales (including terminal scale). The Trinidad specimen conforms to the key given by Roze (). Length is up to  cm (Sazima and Abe ). : Trinidad, Amazonian South America.  : False coral, false coral snake (Abuys ). natural history: Nothing is known of the natural history of this species on Trinidad, as its presence here is recorded from only one preserved specimen, collected by James Oliver in  in the Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley. Beebe () noted that individuals were found on the jungle floor and in British Guiana were often dug up from more than a foot beneath the surface. He recorded specimens with , , , and  scarlet rings, and found that the food of the species consisted of mainly smaller snakes of the genera Atractus, Tantilla,

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and the venomous Micrurus. Freshwater eels, Synbranchus, were also found in the stomach contents. Freiberg () confirms this ophiophagy in Erythrolamprus. This snake, which eats snakes in the genera Oxyrhopus, Liophis, and Erythrolamprus, is itself preyed upon by hawks (Buteo sp.) (Sazima and Abe :). Sazima and Abe () concluded that some protection from predators was provided by its similarity in coloration and behavior to the venomous coral snake Micrurus lemniscatus. Sazima and Abe () noted that this species will flatten its tail area and, hiding its head beneath its coils, raise this flattened tail area. Noted also is its mainly diurnal activity, mostly in the rainy season. The nematode worms Kalicephalus costatus, Cruzia rudolphi, and Zeferinella vazin have been found in this species (Hardy and Boos ). Note: See the species account for Erythrolamprus bizona (following) for fuller discussion of nomenclature and identification. Erythrolamprus bizona Jan  False Coral : TRINIDAD—RVIM , coll. Nov. ,  (identified K. P. Schmidt), Diego Martin Valley (Mertens ). synonymy: Erythrolamprus aesculapii (Linnaeus) J. A. Oliver  (revised by T. H. Aitken, post-, to include this species) E. aesoulapii L. Wehekind (a, b) E. aesoulapii L. Wehekind (c: app. ) E. aesculapii G. Underwood (:) E. aesculapii (Linnaeus) M. Emsley (:–) E. aesculapii M. Emsley (a:–) E. aesculapii R. Mertens (:–) E. aesculapii R. Mertens (:) E. aesculapii subsp. inc. R. Mertens (a:–) E. aesculapii C. G. Alleyne (ca. ) E. a. aesculapii (Linnaeus). H. E. A. Boos (a:–) E. aesculapii (Linnaeus) M. Emsley (:) E. a. aesculapii M. Emsley (:) E. aesculapii P. Greenhall (:–) E. aesculapii J. D. Hardy (:–) E. Aesculapii A. Rodriguez (ca. :) E. “aesculapii” J. D. Hardy (:, ) E. aesculapii aesculapii J. C. Murphy () E. aesculapii H. E. A. Boos (a) E. a. aesculapii (Linnaeus) C. E. P. Santos (:). E. aesculapii H. E. A. Boos (a)

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E. a. ocellatus J. M. Mehrtens (:) E. aesculapii F. Morean (a:–). E. aesculapii (Linnaeus ) Hardy and Boos (:) : This is a cylindrical, smooth-scaled, tricolored snake; maximum length is . m (Hardy and Boos ). There are – wide red bands (scales tipped with black) and – pairs of black bands separated by a white band (scales tipped with black), the first pair starting on the nape and neck. The back of head is white, with scales distinctly outlined in black. There is a black band across the head at the level of the eyes; the snout has varying percentages of black and white. Some pairs of black bands do not go entirely around the body but touch laterally to form white-centered black ocelli. See RVIM  in figure , where pairs , , and  form ocelli, and Roze (:) illustration, pair . (The RVIM  specimen is now considered lost.) There are  scale rows, ventrals , subcaudals /. Mertens (a) gave scale counts for RVIM  of V  + /, SC /. Emsley (a:) gave V , SC  for the same specimen. Hardy, being especially careful due to these differences, counted the scales on this specimen in the s and confirmed the Mertens counts. It is interesting to note that the specimen in the British Museum suggested by Emsley () as possibly being assigned to Trinidad (Emsley : and Boulenger :) is recorded as having V , SC , coincidentally the same as Emsley gives for RVIM . It is possible that Emsley never scale-counted RVIM ; in any case, this error and others are corrected here. : Trinidad, Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela.

Fig. 22. Erythrolamprus bizona, false coral snake. Specimen RVIM 112, now considered lost. One of the rarest snakes in Trinidad. Specimen faded.

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 : (?) False coral.  : Nothing is known of the habits of this species on Trinidad, though it is probably similar in habitat preference and food to other species in the genus. The specimen that was in the Royal Victoria Institute Museum, and which cannot be located, was collected in the Diego Martin valley in  and identified by K. P. Schmidt of Chicago Natural History Museum in . : In , when the Royal Victoria Institute Museum in Port of Spain, Trinidad, received the first specimen from somewhere in the then undeveloped and still heavily agricultural and forested Diego Martin valley, Ludolph Wehekind, who had begun to wear the mantle of “snake man” inherited from the deceased R. R. Mole, had no idea what it was; it probably lay unidentified in its glass jar for several years. (Beebe’s “Field Notes on the Snakes of Kartabo, British Guiana and Caripito, Venezuela” was not published until .) Aid was then sought from a U.S. expert. At this time, during the years of World War II, there were many American scientists passing through and working in Trinidad. Wehekind naturally met with and became friendly with Colin Pittendrigh, James Oliver, and William Beebe, as he had previously done with Raymond Ditmars and Arthur Greenhall when they came to Trinidad to hunt snakes and other exotic fauna in  (Ditmars and Bridges ). The old guard of Boettger in Frankfurt and Boulenger in the British Museum were long dead, and because of the war there were few people going to London to whom such a unique specimen could be entrusted. In , Arthur Greenhall returned to Trinidad, appointed as government zoologist (Greenhall ) and serving in effect as curator of the Royal Victoria Institute; he worked alongside Wehekind on the myriad unsolved zoological puzzles in Trinidad. One of these was whether there were two or three species of coral snake in Trinidad. By  Greenhall, still in Trinidad, was considered director of the Royal Victoria Institute (Schmidt ). To settle the coral snake question, Greenhall sent to Karl P. Schmidt at the Chicago Natural History Museum (now the Field Museum of Natural History) specimens of coral snakes preserved in the collection of the Royal Victoria Institute Museum, included in which must have been RVIM . Other reptile specimens, including coral snakes, were sent to Schmidt at the Chicago museum from T. H. G. Aitken and Wilbur G. Downs, then at the Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory. Colin Campbell Sanborn visited Trinidad in , and sent back reptile specimens to add to those already sent in  by Frank C. Wonder, who also collected in Trinidad. Schmidt () solved the coral snake puzzle (see Micrurus accounts), and in the course of doing so, he identified the single specimen received of Erythrolamprus as E. aesculapii (see later discussion). The specimen was later returned to the Royal Victoria Institute Museum but was also illustrated (Schmidt :) as a comparison to the two species of coral

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snakes that were the main subject of Schmidt’s paper. From the fixed configuration of this specimen it is obviously RVIM , as also photographed by me in  (fig. ). Erythrolamprus is not mentioned in the text of Schmidt’s paper in reference to this specimen or the photograph. Schmidt states only that “the venomous Micrurus can readily be distinguished from the non-venomous snakes of Trinidad, that also have a pattern of black, red and yellow rings, by the fact that the black rings of the harmless Erythrolamprus are in pairs” (emphasis added); by inference, therefore, the specimen of Erythrolamprus shown in his figure  (Schmidt :) came from Trinidad. Karl Schmidt, who was one of the world’s authorities on snakes, identified the specimen as Erythrolamprus aesculapii, new for Trinidad, likely being guided in this identification by the geographical affinities and closeness of Trinidad to British Guiana and by the available descriptions in Boulenger () and Beebe (). In , E. bizona may have been considered an unlikely candidate, as it had been described only in a very old paper by Jan (), as a variety of E. aesculapii, and had been erected to full species status by Marcuzzi in  and Alemán in  in journals published in Caracas, Venezuela—journals possibly obscure to Schmidt. Moreover, Dunn and Bailey () of the Museum of Comparative Zoology had restricted E. bizona to Colombia, and it was only two years later that Roze (b) determined that Jan’s () aesculapii was in fact bizona, and that this species was widely distributed over the entire north of Venezuela, as illustrated on a map (Roze ) including the Paria Peninsula near Trinidad. References from the Museum of Comparative Zoology were surely easier to come by for Schmidt, as it was closer to home for him in the years when he had received the Trinidad specimen. So, with this identification, as the preceding synonymy illustrates, Oliver produced his “Key,” Wehekind published his “Snakes of Trinidad,” and everybody has since followed along. Sometime between  and , my brother Julius Boos began to correspond with Robert Mertens. Borrowing the single specimen, RVIM , Julius lent or sent it to Mertens in Germany to photograph; Mertens subsequently published (a) for the second time a photograph and details of the scalation of this snake. However, in , though Mertens was an old man—he called the locality “Diego Martini”—the scale counts given were accurate. The specimen having been returned to the Royal Victoria Institute Museum, I borrowed it in  for Jerry Dave Hardy; we photographed it again, and he confirmed Mertens’s scale counts. Returned to the museum during a time of reorganizational turmoil—(changing or lack of professional curatorial staff and changes in direction or emphasis, as it was now called the National Museum and Art Gallery)—the specimen was apparently lost, misplaced, stolen, or destroyed; a search for it in  proved fruitless. RVIM  is Erythrolamprus bizona, not E. aesculapii, as Hardy () suggested

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before he discovered a specimen of true E. aesculapii in the American Museum of Natural History collection. A check will have to be made to ascertain whether the specimen listed by Boulenger (, var. L.e.) as coming from the “West Indies,” and which Emsley () suggests may be from Trinidad as it has a pattern similar to the now lost RVIM , is in fact E. aesculapii or E. bizona. Erythrolamprus ocellatus Peters  Tobago False Coral, Red Snake Plate  : TOBAGO—ZMB  (Peters ); BMNH, var. P. (a) (b), no locality given (Boulenger ); SMF  (Mertens a); USNM , , , , , , , , ,  (Hardy ); USNM , , ,  (Hardy and Boos ). The following are from Emsley (a): BMNH (c) (R. R. Mole); BMNH (d or BMNH ), (e or BMNH ), (f or BMNH ) ..; MCZ ; RVIM (no number) .iix.; UWI . : This is a cylindrical, smooth-scaled red snake; maximum length is . cm (Hardy and Boos ). The head is black and there is a series of – black ocelli, some white or yellow centered, on the dorsum. Scales in the red area are tipped with black. The red dorsal color extends onto the belly scales in an irregular jagged pattern. Belly scales are white. The undertail is white with two or three black crossbars. Juveniles have a white area in front of the eye extending from the labials, and a larger white area behind the eye visible from above from the posterior labials to a line bisecting the temporals. The white scales are outlined in black and have black blotching. It has been speculated that E. ocellatus has dorsal spots and not bands on its dorsum, because on Tobago there are no banded venomous coral snakes that it can mimic. Elsewhere, wherever Erythrolamprus species are sympatric with banded, venomous coral snakes, a banded pattern is present, such mimicry affording protection (Emsley b). : Tobago.  : Red snake, false coral (Emsley ); Doktorschlange (Eggers ); doctor snake (Taylor ); back-fanged false coral (Emsley b).  : Little is known of this snake except that it is possibly diurnal and eats other snakes, as do other species in this genus. In captivity one specimen ate a gecko, Hemidactylus mabouia, but died soon after; the first color illustration published (Boos ) of the species was of this specimen. Robert Mertens, on his trips to Tobago, had failed in his purpose to collect specimens of E. ocellatus. Through mutual friends in Tobago, Wanda and Kurt Nothnagel, a dead and then a living one were sent to Julius Boos, who, after ascertaining that the teiid lizard Gymnophthalmus underwoodi was readily eaten by the living snake, forwarded both specimens to Mertens in Germany. The living specimen escaped while in Mertens’s

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care. The dead specimen is SMF . This secretive snake frequents the damp leaf litter of the jungle floor and of cocoa and coffee plantations. In , two were collected dead on the road between Speyside and Charlotteville in the northeast of the island. Emsley (a, b) noted that this snake is an opisthoglyph, or backfanged, and confirmed what Mertens () wrote about its willingness to bite. : Emsley (a) reduced ocellatus to a subspecies of E. aesculapii, based on conspecificness and the fact that only one Tobago specimen (MCZ ) he had scale-counted had fewer ventrals () than the range (–) for the entire complex in Boulenger (:–). Had he correctly counted RVIM  at V , SC /, and compared the Tobago specimen counts with that, instead of with either the counts he lists for RVIM  (a:) or those in Boulenger (), he would have found that the Tobago specimens’ scale counts, both ventral and subcaudal, were all less than those for the only verified specimen from Trinidad, which is now obviously not E. aesculapii but E. bizona. That true E. aesculapii has now been discovered to exist as a second species on Trinidad, and is conspecific with E. bizona, begs the question that, to use Emsley’s argument, if the Tobago specimens are a subspecies, to which species should it be assigned, aesculapii or bizona? Thus, Hardy () was right. The Tobago form of Erythrolamprus is distinctive from any other form either on Trinidad or throughout the range of the genus, due to its unique pattern of ocelli on the dorsum, its island isolation, and the scale count data in table  (Hardy and Boos ). Contrary to Murphy’s () assertion, E. ocellatus can now be clearly distinguished by having a lower ventral scale count than either aesculapii or bizona, and subcaudal scale counts within those for aesculapii but considerably lower than for bizona. : Some Tobagonians believe that this snake, called the “doctor snake,” administers to other snakes that fall ill (Ottley ). De Verteuil (b) records that Leimadophis (= Liophis) melanotus is also known as doctor snake in Tobago only. It is interesting to note that this ability of one snake to heal other snakes, a myth sometimes heard in Trinidad as well, can be traced back to Greek mythology, where Glaucus, the son of Minos II and Pasiphae, having been smothered to death, was watched over by the soothsayer Polydus, with orders, under pain of death, to revive him. Polydus killed the first snake that came to him and, seeing another bring leaves and reanimate the dead snake, used the same technique to revivify the dead Glaucus (Mole ). Other versions of this curative-leaf story have the mongoose knowing which plant is used to protect and cure itself from snakebite.

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Table 1. Comparison of Data: Ventral and Subcaudal Scales in Erythrolamprus bizona, E. aesculapii, and E. ocellatus Emsley Boulenger Roze (1977) Mertens (1966) Roze (1977) (1966a) (1894 L.e**) Venezuela Trinidad Venezuela ocellatus aesculapii aesculapii bizona bizona __________________________________________________________________________ V 168–179* 180 183–197 189 181–201 SC 40–49 43 30–49 57/58 51/60 T’dad AMNH 75146 V 198 SC 41 ___________________________________________________________________________ Abuys (1983)

Dixon and Soini (1977)

Lancini (1979, 1986) Suriname Venezuela aesculapii aesculapii aesculapii bizona ___________________________________________________________________________ V 172–194 V 184–193(m) V 173–198 V 180–204 SC 35–49 V 179–194(f) SC 31–49 SC 51–62 SC 41–46(m) SC 35–43(f) ___________________________________________________________________________ * Emsley’s (a:) specimen (b), V , SC , does not conform to the specimen quoted in Boulenger (:), V , SC . Thus the range of ventrals and subcaudals for E. ocellatus, stated to be –, should in fact should be –. ** + Type L. Specimen (e). This is the specimen that Emsley (:) speculates may come from Trinidad.

Genus: Helicops Wagler Helicops Wagler  Helicops angulatus (Linnaeus ) Water Mapepire Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (Sclater ); AMNH , –, FMNH , USNM ,  (Murphy ). : This is a thick-bodied, dark crossbanded water-dwelling snake. The tail narrows conspicuously after the anus. The body has crossbands of varying shades of dirty brown or light and dark green with dark margins. The belly may be a dirty yellow or brick red with dark brown or black crossbars and spots. Dorsal scales are prominently keeled. The eyes and nostrils are placed almost dorsally. The snake flattens itself when threatened and is almost totally aquatic.

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Maximum size is  cm. : Trinidad, tropical South America. local names: Water mapepire, brown-banded water snake (Abuys ), water snake, annulated water snake, angulated snake. natural history: Living almost exclusively in the freshwater and brackish swamps and estuaries of rivers, this snake is superbly adapted to an aquatic life. The eyes and nostrils, placed almost at the top of the head, allow both vision and breathing while the rest of the body is totally submerged. It feeds on fish. Beebe () found fish scales in the stomach. It possibly takes freshwater eels, Synbranchus marmoratus, and frogs, both in the water and from reeds and grasses growing on the banks, and has been known to take bait from the hooks of fishermen fishing for guabines, Hoplias malabaricus. Mole () noted the eating of the spiny armored catfish, Callichthys and Corydoras, and Wehekind () suggested that this snake may prey on other snakes. It has been collected in the surf-wrack on Icacos beach in the southwest of Trinidad, among the rolling water hyacinth rafts washing in from Venezuela in July to November, during the rainy season. The banded pattern and its willingness to bite have earned this snake the local name of water mapepire. Wehekind (a) noted the extremely aggressive behavior when this snake flattened itself along its entire length and struck at the same time, seeming to leap off the ground. I had on one occasion to advise the doctors of the Casualty Department of the Port of Spain General Hospital to release a Helicops bite victim who was convinced that he had been envenomated after being bitten on the calf of his leg while he was standing among riverbank reeds using a cast net. Mole () noted that this snake “bore an extraordinary resemblance to Lachesis muta, the Bushmaster”; he had obviously seen few specimens of either species. Due to general shape and color differences, the only real similarities between the two species are that they both possess varying rhomboidal dorsal crossbands and keeled scales. Morean (a) mistakenly says that this species looks like the “true coral.” Mole (b) reported that R. Ditmars, in a letter dated , had told him that this species laid eight eggs; however, Rossman (), quoting Amaral’s (d) statement that Brazilian Helicops is ovoviviparous, concludes that it may be “facultatively ovoviviparous.” Rossman noted that one clutch of two eggs took only  and  days of incubation to hatch; he suggested that the snake had the facility of egg retention until live birth/hatching occurred when, perhaps due to severe flooding, suitable oviposition sites on dry land were not available. Rodriguez () reports a live birth, and Rossman () confirms that seven full-term young snakes were removed from a preserved specimen from Peru.

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Genus: Hydrops Wagler Hydrops Wagler  Hydrops triangularis neglectus Roze  Water Coral Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—RMNH  (Brongersma ); ANSP , BMNH ..., AMNH  (Roze ); AMNH , ,  (Murphy ). description (fig. ): This is a smooth-scaled, cylindrical-bodied water snake, with alternating bands of dark brown or green-brown and dirty pink. The belly is pinkish with dark crossbands. Young are more brightly colored. The head is not very distinct from the neck and body. Maximum size is up to  cm. : Trinidad, western Venezuela. local names: Water coral, false coral, water snake, water (false) coral. natural history: A swamp- and estuary-dwelling snake, this species feeds on eels and fish (Wehekind ). There is some evidence that waifs from Venezuela are washed ashore on the eastern beaches of Trinidad in water hyacinth rafts (Carr ), and Allan Rodriguez collected a thin, starved specimen from the lagoon in North Manzanilla beach. One specimen, picked up crushed on the road near the Cumuto River bridge, had a  cm freshwater eel, Synbranchus marmoratus, in its stomach. This snake lays eggs; one clutch, near hatching, was dug out of shallow earth

Fig. 23. Hydrops triangularis neglectus, water coral. Juvenile.

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in a riverbank. The brightly colored young were plainly visible through the almost transparent egg shell (plate ). Genus: Liophis Wagler Liophis Wagler  Liophis cobellus cobellus (Linnaeus ); (Dixon )

Mangrove Snake, Mapepire Mangue

Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—MCZ (Garman ); BMNH (a) (Boulenger ); NMBE (Roux ); TRVL (Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory ); MCZ , , AMNH , , , ,  (Dixon a); FMNH , ; MCZ  (Murphy ). : This is a small to medium-sized snake (maximum . cm), aquatic and smooth-scaled. Color varies from light green to olive green to almost greenblack, with or without yellow fleckings over the entire body. In the specimens with flecking, the labials are pale yellowish white with the scales edged in black. The belly is light green speckled or barred with dark greenish black. Albinism has been reported (Welch ; see plate , this volume). : Trinidad, lowlands of eastern Venezuela, Guianas. local names: Mangrove snake; mangrove mapepire; mapepire mangue; water snake. natural history: Found mainly in low-lying swampy areas, these snakes are extremely aquatic, though they have been collected in the Arima Valley (Beebe ; Welch ). They feed on frogs Mannophryne trinitatis (Mole and Urich b), the gecko Thecadactylus rapicauda, and fish. They are egg layers (Duellman ) and young are found in June (Mole a, b). Thelen and Faizool () listed the species as “threatened,” mainly due to the rapid loss of habitat in the Nariva Swamp area, and Alkins-Koo and Soomai () listed it as a key species for conservation in the Caroni and Nariva swamps. note: In his checklist of Tobago snakes (:), Emsley listed this species for Tobago in error, though Tobago is not listed in the distribution given within in the species account (pp. –). Hardy (), possibly using the Emsley listing, included it for Tobago, but noted that he could locate no voucher specimens for Tobago and hence included it only provisionally in his  work. Liophis melanotus nesos (Dixon and Michaud )

Beh Belle Chemin, Doctor Snake (Tobago)

Plate  : TRINIDAD—NMBE (Garman ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE (Roux ); RMNH , ,  (Brongersma ); BMNH ...,

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..., ., MCZ , , USNM , -, , ZMUC R, R, BMNH ..., TCWC , UMMZ , AMNH -, , USNM , AMNH , FMNH -, BMNH .., MCZ , AMNH , MCZ , , LACM , USNM , AMNH -, FMNH , CM -, MCZ , RMNH , BMNH ., FMNH , AMNH , FMNH , -, BMNH ., FMNH , AMNH , FMNH -, BMNH  , AMNH , , , RMNH - (Dixon and Michaud ). TOBAGO—BMNH (i) (Boulenger ); MCZ (Barbour b); ANSP -, BMNH ...-, ..., ., MCZ , , USNM , , AMNH , BMNH ..., USNM , MCZ , BMNH ., USNM (HAH ), USNM (field nos. JDH , , ), USNM (field no. ), BMNH . , USNM (field nos. , ), USNM (field nos. , ), USNM (field no. ), USNM , USNM (field no. ALB ). (Dixon and Michaud ). : This is a small ( cm), bright orange snake with three black lines: one on the center of the dorsum and one on each side running the entire length of the body. The belly is bright orange. The head is olive green above, with a black lateral streak passing through the eye. : Trinidad, Tobago, Chacachacare Island. local names: Beh belle chemin; beauty of the road; doctor snake (Tobago, de Verteuil b; see Erythrolamprus ocellatus species account in the present volume); black-backed snake (de Suze ); squirrel snake (Emsley ); belle chemin (Emsley ); Shaw’s black backed snake; bebelle-chemin (de Suze ). natural history: Both terrestrial and aquatic, as well as being diurnal, the beh belle chemin feeds on frogs, frogs’ eggs, tadpoles, and fish. Brongersma () found the tails of two Scolecosaurus (= Bachia), a teiid lizard, in the stomach contents of one specimen. This little snake sometimes constricts its prey. Schwartz and Henderson () noted that the frog Eleutherodactylus and the lizards Gonatodes and Bachia were eaten. Up to  eggs are laid (Mole and Urich b) in June (Mole ) and in January (Wehekind ) and hatch in  days (Rodriguez ). The species is preyed upon by the coral snake Micrurus lemniscatus diutius. Defensive behavior consists of flattening the first third of the body and sometimes rearing up like a miniature cobra (Mole b). It is also preyed upon by the mongoose (Williams ). Brennan and Jones () found the ectoparasitic mite Eutrombicula alfreddugesi on these snakes. Dixon and Michaud () state that the characteristics of specimens from Tobago and from Trinidad show greater similarities to those from Colombia than to those from closer regions of mainland South America.

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Liophis reginae zweifeli (Dixon ) High Woods Coral Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (a) (Boulenger ); SMF c, e (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux ); USNM –, , , BMNH ..., ..., FMNH –, AMNH , , MCZ ,  (Dixon b); USNM  (Wynn ). TOBAGO—USNM  (Hardy ; Dixon b). : Liophis reginae was given its specific name by Linnaeus in  to honor the queen of Sweden (Mole b). Hardy () published a photo of the first specimen collected on Tobago and noted that though it was unlike the Trinidad species in coloration, it keyed out to Leimadophis (= Liophis) reginae (Peters and Orejas-Miranda ; Emsley ) and to Leimadophis (= Liophis) zweifeli in Roze (). Dixon (b) noted that this Tobago specimen had a tan dorsolateral stripe that distinguished it from Trinidad specimens. In all other characters, the Tobago specimen keyed out as L. reginae. Dixon made no further comment on this specimen but went on to state that the subspecies for the montane zone of Venezuela and Trinidad was zweifeli, crediting Roze for this description. However, Roze (a) had in fact described zweifeli as a full species. In his list of specimens examined, Dixon (b) lists the Tobago USNM  as Liophis reginae subsp. However, in his  key and checklist to the genus Liophis, Dixon lists Liophis reginae for Tobago (no subspecies given) and L. r. zweifeli for Trinidad. Murphy () retains Liophis reginae ssp. as an endemic, undescribed subspecies for Tobago, listing two specimens (of three known) in support of this separate listing. He notes that a tan dorsolateral stripe on one specimen, USNM , indistinct on the other from Gilpin Trace (Murphy : pl. ), is virtually the only characteristic that separates it from L. r. zweifeli from Trinidad. More specimens from Tobago will undoubtedly help to clear up this puzzle as to what subspecific name the specimens found on Tobago should be assigned. Another oddity is that one specimen, AMNH , is listed from Little Tobago Island, B.W.I. Michaud and Dixon () note that this record of L. lineatus is in error; this is confirmed by Hardy (pers. comm., ). : This is a small light or dark green snake ( cm), each scale outlined in black to give a netlike pattern. The belly is bright orange with incomplete black bars. Two yellow-green stripes outlined with black run backward from the top of the head to the angle of the mouth. Color under the neck is bright yellow, under the tail bright immaculate orange. In dark specimens and those from Tobago (fig. ), the scale netting or reticulation is not obvious. The Tobago specimen examined has no head pattern, no belly pattern, and a distinct dorsolateral line. : Trinidad, Tobago, Venezuela.  : High woods coral; reticulated snake; royal snake (Sclater ).

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Fig. 24. Liophis reginae zweifeli, high woods coral. Tobago specimen.

 : Similar in habits to L. melanotus, this snake feeds on frogs, frogs’ eggs, tadpoles, and fish. It is commonly found in the river inside Tamana Cave, where adults and tadpoles of the frog Mannophryne trinitatis abound. It flattens the fore body and neck in a display of defense (Mole and Urich b; Beebe ). Beebe also noted small birds and lizards (Ameiva) in the stomach. Everard () listed as internal parasites the acanthocephalans Centrorhynchus and Onicola or Oligacanthrorhynchus, and the pentastomid Raillietiella (prob. furcocerca or bicaudata); Brennan and Jones () found the mites Eutrombicula a. alfreddugesi, E. goldii, and Trombicula manueli living as ectoparasites on this species. Genus: Oxyrhopus Wagler Oxyrhopus Wagler  Oxyrhopus petola petola (Linnaeus ) False Coral Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—BMNH Acquisition – (); TRVL (); USNM ; FMNH –, –, , , MCZ , , , , , ,  (Murphy ). TOBAGO—SMF  (Mertens ); USNM  (Hardy ; Murphy ). Note: R. R. Mole sent the first four specimens to the British Museum in London; they are identified and listed in that museum’s acquisition sheet for  as Oxyrhopus petolarius. Later, Mole (b, ), using the descriptions in Boulenger (), noted the

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presence of this species on Trinidad, saying that the first specimens came to his notice in  or  and these, along with subsequent specimens, were possibly the ones he lodged in the British Museum in . : This is a slender, dark purplish black snake with a distinct neck and a pearl white belly. In the adult ( m) there are faint red bands, which can be seen only when the snake is turned to catch the light. The eye may be red. The young are brightly banded with irregular crossbands, the first five or six in the neck region being bright yellow, changing to pink, and then to red. Detailed scientific description is given elsewhere (Emsley ; Murphy ). : Trinidad, Tobago, northern South America.  : False coral snake; sombre false coral (Emsley ); red chain snake (Stechert ).  : Little is known of the habits of this terrestrial snake. It grows to about  m in length. At this size the distinctive red and yellow bands have faded almost completely. The scales give off an iridescent glow when exposed to the sun, and the bands can then be faintly seen. Individuals are often killed because the bright-banded young are almost invariably confused with the venomous coral snakes. Some specimens lack the red iris in the eye and may be almost totally melanistic. One specimen in the collection of the University of the West Indies at St. Augustine lacks any indication of bands whatever. A partial albino was collected in the Sangre Grande area by Allan Rodriguez (fig. ). These snakes prefer high humidity and often die in captivity if denied access to water. They are back-fanged, and their saliva is extremely toxic to Anolis lizards offered to captive specimens. These snakes are also extremely delicate and soon die if

Fig. 25. Oxyrhopus petola petola, false coral. Partial albino, in which only the melanin is missing. Red and pale yellow fore-body banding can still be seen.

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even slightly injured during capture. The young feed readily on lizards, small frogs, and baby mice, the adults taking small rodents, birds, and young chickens. They probably eat other snakes (Rodriguez ). They are frequently found under rocks or timber or in disused piles of bricks, where there are dry and secure hiding places, and are extremely gentle upon handling; I know of no cases where this snake has attempted to bite. However, Greenhall (), considering the opisthoglyph nature of this snake, listed it as “potentially dangerous.” Rodriguez () noted mating in May and August and a total of  eggs laid. Genus: Pseudoboa Schneider Pseudoboa Schneider  Pseudoboa neuwiedii (Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril 1854) Ratonel Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—BMNH var. B (r) (Gunther ); BMNH (e) (f) (Boulenger ); SMF b (Boettger ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE (Roux ); FMNH , , MCZ ,  (Murphy ). TOBAGO—SMF (Boettger ); SMF a (Boettger ); MCZ (Hardy ); MCZ , , , ,  (Murphy ). Note: The specimens identified for Tobago by Barbour (b) as Clelia are in fact Pseudoboa (Hardy ). : Adults are light mahogany pinkish brown, with pearl white to yellowish white belly. The head is wedge shaped with no distinct neck. Young are bright pink, with dark brown head with yellow or dirty white collar. The juveniles can be confused with the deeper red young of Clelia. Details of scalation and other characteristics are given in Emsley (). Maximum size is  m. : Trinidad, Tobago, Chacachacare Island (Lall and Hayes ), Venezuela, northern South America.  : Ratonero; ratonel; mapepire velour; ratonelle (Ramcharan et al. ); moon snake; Neuwiede’s oxyrhopus (Mole ); smooth glossy snake (Cook ); brown snake (de Verteuil b).  : A powerful constricting snake, this species is fairly common around human habitation, where it feeds on nearly any creature it can catch and overpower—mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, or fish. One specimen in captivity, in its feeding frenzy, seized and swallowed its own slough and a lump of fecal matter. It then engulfed my finger up to the second knuckle; I had some difficulty in extracting the finger. On another occasion it captured and consumed a specimen of Oxyrhopus petola, less bulky but longer than itself. This massive meal was later regurgitated. Another individual was killed on the track above Charlotteville, Tobago, where it was in the process of eating a specimen of Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni fully as long as itself (see fig. ). In the Emperor

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Valley Zoo, placed in a cage with an Australian amethistine python fully  m long, the . m Pseudoboa attempted to find a starting point along the massive python to begin to swallow. Oliver, in his unpublished key (), noted that this species ate “lizards, rats, pigs.” Though I am fairly sure that he meant guinea pigs, given half a chance Pseudoboa would attempt to eat a pig. Kershaw () accused Pseudoboa of being jointly responsible, with the mongoose, for wiping out the “ground lizards,” Ameiva, in the Caroni area. Mole (a, b) noted, however, that a small specimen of the “fer de lance,” Bothrops atrox, and a bushmaster, Lachesis muta, were refused. The venom delivered by the rear fangs of this snake caused only an itching sensation in my partially swallowed finger, but there is evidence that this venom has considerably more serious effects on smaller prey animals (Boos c). Young and immatures are extremely delicate and can dehydrate and die very quickly. The brightly colored juveniles are more often than not killed; because of their bright red color, they are taken for coral snakes. These bright colors fade to a rich pinkish brown in the adult, and the minor neck delineation or narrowing evident in the juvenile is lost. Adult specimens from Tobago tend to be darker brown. In the adult, the head takes on its wedge shape, which is used to burrow through loose earth and leaf litter in search of prey. This burrowing ability makes the Pseudoboa an escape artist from aquaria, loosely constructed cages, or badly knotted collecting bags. One specimen negotiated the single knot in the neck of a cloth bag. This burrowing habit also often leads to the snake rubbing its rostral scale raw while in captivity. Mating was noted in November to February;  to  eggs were laid from September to February and hatched in January and May (Mole ). Calcified eggs were found in a gravid female collected in late August (Stanton and Dixon ). One hatchling was photographed in February . Riley et al. () noted that eggs were found in the nests of leaf-cutting ants (Atta sp. and Acromyrex). : There has been considerable confusion concerning the correct scientific name and how many species of this snake are found on Trinidad and on Tobago. Pseudoboa coronata Schneider has been used by the Field Naturalists’ Club (d, b, e, b, c), Gunther (), Sclater (), Urich (), Urich (), Mole and Urich (a, b), Kershaw (), Mole (a, b, b, ), Amaral (a), Oliver (), Wehekind (, , , a, b), Roze (), de Verteuil (b), Medem (), and Mertens (). Use of this name in the early years gave rise to the common name crowned snake. Pseudoboa neuwiedii Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril, has been used by the following: Gunther (), Boulenger (), Boettger (), Werner (), Mole (, a, b, a, b, ), Barbour (, b, a, ),

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Fig. 26. Pseudoboa neuwiedii, ratonel. Dark Tobago form, killed while eating Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni.

Roux (), Amaral (a), Bailey (), Beebe (, ), Oliver (), Wehekind (, , , a, b, c), Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory (), Asa Wright Nature Centre (), Underwood (), Mertens (, ), Groome (), Peters and Orejas-Miranda (), Boos (a, c, , a, a), Emsley (), Greenhall (), Maclean et al. (), Ramcharan et al. (), Hardy (), Lancini (, ), Rodriguez (), Hardy (), Murphy (), Riley (), Santos (), Stechert (), Lescure (), Schwab (), Tikasingh (), and Brown et al. (). To further confuse matters, Werner () listed Oxyrhopus guerini from Port of Spain, Trinidad. This taxon was synonymised with Pseudoboa neuwiedii (Roze , via Schmidt ). Bailey () speculated that the form on Tobago, having a higher number of subcaudal scales (– in males, – in females) than those from Trinidad, should be afforded the subspecific name of P. neuwiedii euphaeus Cope , the same as a form found in western Panama and the northern and the interior portions of Colombia. This speculation was ignored by Peters and Orejas-Miranda () and P. euphaeus Cope  was synonymised with P. neuwiedii. Emsley () put this confusion into perspective, noting that the specimens

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of Pseudoboa coronata, which has  scale rows, had possibly been collected in the Trinidad area of Bolivia and that all the old records were probably misidentifications of P. neuwiedii. He also noted that Werner’s () single specimen of P. guerini differed so slightly from P. neuwiedii that the former should be deleted from the “authenticated” list. Besides it being placed in the genera Oxyrhopus and Scytale from time to time, misspellings and typographical errors in this snake’s scientific name are common in the literature (Pseudo/boa neuweidii, Pseudo/boa newopii, Oxyrhopus neuwidii, Pseudoboa neuwieddi, Psudboa, Pseudoboa neuweidii). As noted in the Clelia species account, some Tobago specimens listed as Clelia were found under closer examination to be Pseudoboa neuwiedii (Hardy ). Recently a specimen was caught and photographed on Chacachacare Island by Floyd Hayes of the University of the West Indies (Lall and Hayes ). Genus: Siphlophis Fitzinger Siphlophis Fitzinger  Siphlophis cervinus (Laurenti ) Checkerbelly Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (e) (Boulenger ); USNM ,  (Crombie ); USNM  (Wynn ); AMNH , FMNH  (Murphy ). description (fig. ): Adults are about . m; the head is blunt and distinct from the neck. There is a pink or red dorsal stripe; sides are barred irregularly with yellow and black. The belly is yellow with irregular dark spots and bars; there is a red patch on the nape of the neck. : Trinidad, tropical Amazonian South America. local names: Checkerbelly, chequerbelly, variegated snake (Emsley ). natural history: Little is known about this comparatively rare snake. Although it has been recorded in Trinidad since , few specimens have been collected over the years following. Mole (b) claimed he had never seen it, but specimens have occasionally turned up from many different localities of Trinidad. Emsley () speculated that it ate frogs and lizards and reported that it had been collected from the tops of palm trees as well as on the ground. Beebe () called it the “yellow frog-snake.” Greenhall () speculated that food taken was frogs, lizards, and other animals of similar size. Amaral () states that it is arboreal and nocturnal, and lays – eggs. Smith () noted mainly diurnal activity in a captive specimen collected in Nariva Swamp. : Greenhall () seems to have coined the name checkerbelly. However, the snake seems to have great variation as to the presence or absence of dark spots or crossbars on the belly that would warrant this common name. Origi-

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Fig. 27. Siphlophis cervinus, checkerbelly. Portrait of a rare snake.

nally, Boulenger (), describing specimens from the Amazon, Bolivia, and Trinidad, noted “belly yellow, with black spots or irregular cross bars.” Amaral (:) described the “face ventral amarellada, quasi immaculada ate o anus e pintada de negro sob a cauda” (front of ventrals yellow, almost immaculate as far as the anus with black spots under the tail). Hoge’s () photo of the ventral surface of Siphlophis cervinus shows a few incomplete dark bars on the fore part of the ventral surface, with increased numbers nearing and upon the subcaudal area. Duellman () states that specimens from Ecuador had a pale yellow ventral surface. The specimens I have examined have had an almost immaculate yellow belly with little or no “checkering.” Nonetheless, the common name checkerbelly has now received enough use for there to be little to gain by resisting it for this comparatively rare snake. Genus: Thamnodynastes Wagler Thamnodynastes Wagler  Thamnodynastes sp. Striped Swamp Snake : TRINIDAD—BMNH /, southwest peninsula (Stimson ); FMNH ; AMNH . description (based on one male specimen): snout-vent length  mm; tail (incomplete)  mm; dorsals smooth, with single apical pits, in  rows at midbody reducing to  posteriorly; ventrals ; anal divided; subcaudals + (an

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Fig. 28. Thamnodynastes sp., striped swamp snake. One of three specimens collected dead on the road in the southwestern peninsula of Trinidad.

estimated – missing);  supralabials, th and th entering the eye; single preocular; two post oculars; temporals  + ;  infralabials, first  in contact with anterior chin shields. The pale brown of the back is separated from the darker brown of the sides by a pair of light, narrow longitudinal stripes; the dorsum and upper sides have irregular black spotting mostly confined to the scale edges. The belly is whitish with a pair of lateral, longitudinal, light-centered dark stripes. A second central pair of light-centered longitudinal stripes is less distinct, almost gray; these two stripes merge posteriorly on the tail and anteriorly on the throat to form a single midventral stripe. The head is darker and more heavily spotted with black than the trunk; a black postocular streak runs from the eye to the angle of the jaw. Supralabials are barred with black; a black stripe runs from the eye to the nostril (Stimson ). : Trinidad; Orinoco River delta, coastal Guyana.  : Striped swamp snake.  : This species is possibly a swamp-edge dweller, and it has been noted that it is partially arboreal as well. It bears live young and possibly eats lizards and small mammals (Amaral ). Freiberg () noted that this South American species is rear-fanged, aggressive, and, living near rivers and streams,

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it feeds on frogs and toads; a local name he gives, sapera, indicates its affinity for frogs and toads. I have collected no live individual on Trinidad but am hopeful that extensive observation in the southwestern part of the island will yield a living specimen of this elusive and fairly small snake, which is possibly a recent immigrant from mainland Venezuela. Only three specimens have been collected, dead on the road in the Chatham and Cedros area of the southwestern peninsula. They were entire but somewhat mutilated and flattened, as apparently they had been run over by vehicles while crossing the road. The area where they were collected, between the towns of Bonasse and Cedros, is low-lying and swampy on both sides of the road. The three specimens, lodged in the British Museum, FMNH, and AMNH, were provisionally identified as the species T. strigatus. : It is interesting to note that Stimson () found that the first specimen collected on Trinidad—BMNH /—had smooth dorsal scales, an unexpected condition in that the geographically nearest relative, T. strigilis, found in Venezuela south of the Orinoco and west of Lake Maracaibo, has keeled scales. Though Stimson has found smooth-scaled T. strigatus in “Demerara” in Guyana, it is generally thought that T. strigilis is a species found in the tropical areas of the southern South American countries. Current work has shown that the Trinidad specimens and those from adjacent Venezuela are a new species (Bailey and Thomas, in press). Genus: Tripanurgos Fitzinger Tripanurgos Fitzinger  Tripanurgos compressus (Daudin ) Mapepire De Fe Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH Aquis. list p. , no.  (); FMNH , , , – (Murphy ). : This is a slender, laterally compressed snake, with a large oval head, distinct neck, and prominent red eyes. Overall color is light to dark pink, with light or dark gray incomplete bands or spots extending up the sides fairly evenly spaced along the body. The belly is pinkish white. The head is dark pink, with or without a distinct yellow band extending onto the neck region, followed by a dark wide band of grayish black. Maximum size is . m. : Trinidad, tropical South America.  : False coral, red-headed water snake (Beebe ); “Mapepire something or the other” (Mole ); pseudofalse coral, false false coral (Greenhall ; Emsley ); fire mapepire, mapepire de fay (Rodriguez ); mapepire de fe; whipsnake; mapepire di fe.  : Little is known about this quite rare snake, which is back-

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fanged and mainly nocturnal and arboreal. It feeds on small lizards (Duellman ; Wehekind ) and probably takes frogs and nestling birds. It lays eggs (Amaral ). The first specimen for Trinidad was collected in  (Mole a), and one specimen was lodged with the British Museum in London by Mole in . It was found to be host to the chigger parasite Fonsecia ewingi (Brennan ; Aitken et al. ). Its eggs have been found deposited in the nests of bachacs, the leaf-cutting ants Atta cephalotes (Riley ). Dixon and Soini () found hatchlings in Peru in March.

Subfamily: Dipsadinae Genus: Atractus Wagler Atractus Wagler  Atractus trilineatus Wagler  Three-lined Ground Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (h-l) (Boulenger ); SMF a (Boettger ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE (Roux ); RMNH . (Brongersma ); FMNH , –, ; MCZ , –; USNM , , – (Murphy ). USNM . TOBAGO—MCZ (Barbour b); USNM –, – (Murphy ). : Detailed description is given by Emsley () and Murphy (). This is a small burrowing snake up to . cm long, light brown on the dorsal surface with three darker longitudinal stripes or lines. Belly is pale yellowish white. There is no distinct neck. The tail ends in a sharp spinelike scale. : Trinidad, Tobago, northeastern South America. A specimen recorded for Huevos Island (Emsley ) was not found; unless the species is collected there again, the record is doubtful (Boos b; Emsley, pers. comm., ). Hoogmoed () states that A. trilineatus is restricted to Trinidad and western Guiana.  : Ground snake, three-lined ground snake, three-lined worm snake, short-tailed ground snake, stub-tailed snake, three-lined snake.  : Usually found in a tight ball under rotting vegetation, these small burrowing snakes, especially the immatures, can easily be mistaken either for specimens of the families Leptotyphlopidae or Typhlopidae or for earthworms. The sharp spine at the end of the tail, similar to that of other burrowing snakes, has been mistakenly identified as a “sting.” Up to five eggs are laid in August (Mole and Urich b; Emsley ; photo, H. Boos collection.. These snakes possibly eat soft-bodied insects or earthworms. Wehekind () reported pieces being bitten out of earthworms. Dove ()

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Fig. 29. Atractus trilineatus, three-lined snake. Albino specimen collected in Maraval, Port of Spain. USNM 286971.

stated that a specimen of Atractus ate three small earthworms. I have noted the biting off of pieces of prey on one occasion when an earthworm offered as food to A. trilineatus was later found in two parts; however, biting or eating of any part of the earthworm was not witnessed or confirmed. Rodriguez () noted fish and tadpoles as food. Mole (a) and Mole and Urich (b) reported that these snakes fall prey to both species of elapid Micrurus, and they are eaten by other ophiophagus snakes, such as Erythrolamprus (Beebe , Guiana), Oxyrhopus (Emsley ), and Pseudoboa and Bothrops immatures (Rodriguez ). I collected an albino specimen, USNM  (fig. ), in Maraval, Port of Spain. : J. S. Crossham, a member of the  Leicestershire Youth Expedition Group, collected a specimen of Atractus in the Maraval area of Port of Spain. Comparing it to the characteristics of four other species among the  species listed in Peters and Orejas-Miranda (), Dove () concluded that although it keyed most closely to the known species occurring in Trinidad, A. trilineatus, it differed in two characters. The specimen was sent to the British Museum for final determination and for publication of the findings. To date there has been no further word on this specimen.

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Fig. 30. Atractus cf. univittatus, Tobago onelined snake. Specimen USNH 228024.

Atractus cf. univittatus (Jan ) Tobago One-lined Snake : TOBAGO—USNM , Charlotteville (Hardy ). description (fig. ): This snake is similar to A. trilineatus in general shape and color. Hardy () illustrated the single specimen (photo, A. Braswell) collected on Tobago but gave no description of characters to which A. univittatus can be compared. The same specimen, photographed by the author in color in January , is dark brown on the dorsal surface, with at least one indistinct darker longitudinal line. The belly is dirty white. A. univittatus from Venezuela is described as having a rostral wider than it is long, hardly visible from above, and internasals much smaller than the prefrontals. The frontal is much larger than it is wide, dividing the parietals, and the loreal is longer than it is high. There is no preocular; there are two postoculars,  +  temporals,  or  upper and  lower labials, and there is a single pair of chin shields. There are  dorsal scale rows, – ventrals (anal entire), and  divided subcaudals (adapted from Roze  and Lancini ). The Tobago specimen, USNM , was judged to be close to this species (Hardy ). Murphy () gave scalation details of the Tobago specimen. : Tobago, central coastal mountains of Venezuela.  : Tobago one-lined snake. Genus: Dipsas Laurenti Dipsas Laurenti  Dipsas variegata trinitatis Parker  Snail-eating Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH ... (Parker ); BMNH ...; AMNH  (Peters a); USNM , ; FMNH –, –

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, , ; MCZ , , –; USNM ,  (Murphy ). : This is a slim, smooth-scaled, brightly colored snake, up to  mm in length. The neck is very slim, the head large and prominent with rounded snout; scales on the underside of the jaw are arranged horizontally. Eyes are large and prominent. The main body color is brown, with black flecks. Twin bracketlike yellow bands form partial ocelli on the sides, enclosing a black or dark brown center, itself with a lighter brown core. These yellow markings sometimes touch at the middle of the back, giving the appearance of Bothrops. The top of head is dark brown or black, and the belly is yellow with dark speckling. : Trinidad.  : Snail-eating snake (Emsley ); false mapepire (Greenhall ); thirst snake.  : This is a secretive, nocturnal, arboreal snake, often found tightly coiled among the bracts of bromeliads and the root-masses of tree orchids and epiphytes. It feeds almost exclusively on small tree snails such as those of the genus Cyclodontina and also takes shell-less land-mollusk slugs. Stomach contents of the first specimen collected by E. W. Lehner in Trinidad, in the Trinity Hills, Guayaguayare, and sent to the British Museum by F. W. Urich, contained the radula of a snail identified as Auris (Endolichotis) glabra. This gave Parker () an indication as to its identification. He concluded that it was “arboricolus and malacophagus,” that is, living in trees and eating snails or mollusks. In captivity it has eaten tree snails of the species Orthalicus undatus and Cyclodontina sp. Its specially adapted lower jaw and long teeth are used to probe deep into the shell covering the tree snails. Wrapping its body around its intended prey until this is almost completely hidden, the snake adroitly extracts the snail from inside the shell, despite the secretion of quantities of mucus, and swallows it, dropping the empty shell. Slugs are engulfed without constriction. This little snake bears a close resemblance to an immature and venomous mapepire balsain, Bothrops atrox, even to the extent of imitating the tight coiling habit and bluffing attempts to strike. However, its blunt head, slim body, large eyes, small maximum size, and brighter pattern brand it a harmless mimic. It is not known to be aggressive or bite, and it possibly lays eggs. : This snake was discovered in , lodged in the British Museum, and described by Parker in . Wehekind () did not note the unique feeding habits of this snake, which was a new record for him and his predecessors, de Verteuil () and Mole (b, ). Parker () had noted its possible feeding habits thanks to examination of its stomach contents by a Col. A. J. Peile. Due to its unique features, Parker described it as a new species, unique to Trinidad. Peters (a), examining two more specimens (only one listed—AMNH ), concluded that it differed only in color from specimens from mainland South

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America, but enough to warrant subspecies status. Mole (a) wrongly concluded that the first specimen of  cm was a very young specimen. Murphy (pers. comm., ) has said that Chris Kofron, who is working on the revision of the genus, may make a new determination of the identification of the species found on Trinidad, and he states () that this snake may deserve full species status, if this is supported by additional specimens and biochemical data. Genus: Imantodes Duméril and Bibron Imantodes Duméril and Bibron  Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa (Linnaeus )

Mapepire Corde Violon, Fiddle-string Snake

Plate  : TRINIDAD—MCZ (Garman ); BMNH (h) (Boulenger ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE (Roux ); AMNH , , –, , –, –; USNM  (Murphy ). TOBAGO—SMF (Mertens ); USNM  (Murphy ). : This snake is very slender, light brown with darker brown or black diamond-shaped spots along the entire length, with the lower angles almost touching the belly scales. The belly is pale brown with some spotting. The head is large, blunt, and rounded, with a distinct neck and prominent eyes. Length is up to . m (Emsley ). : Trinidad, Tobago, tropical South America.  : Fiddle-string snake, fiddle-string mapepire, violin-string snake, mapepire corde violon, chunk-headed snake, thread snake, slender tree snake; night climber (Beebe ); cenchoa snake (Sclater ).  : Due to its extremely long thin body and tail, this arboreal and mainly nocturnal snake appears to be half-starved. Superbly adapted to travel through thin branches of trees and bushes, it is commonly found in gardens early in the night, hunting for either nocturnal geckos or sleeping Anolis lizards. It has been noted (Beebe ; Wehekind ; Zug et al. ) that it feeds on reptile eggs, frogs’ eggs (Mannophryne, Eleutherodactylus), lizards (Gonatodes, Anolis), and frogs (Scinax rubra). Some prey is held in the jaws and swallowed alive (Rodriguez ). Greenhall (Herklots and Greenhall ) noted that it fed on slugs and snails, but he probably meant either Sibon or Dipsas, which confusion started with Ditmars (), who showed a photo of Imantodes but labeled it Petalognathus catesbyi (= Dipsas variegata trinitatis). Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa lays eggs (Wehekind , ; Zug et al. ). Mating is said to occur from May to September and more than one clutch of eggs is laid annually (Rodriguez ).

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Like Dipsas, it has been found during the day coiled up in bromeliads and in primary and secondary forests (Sanderson ; Zug et al. ). Its superficial resemblance to the bushmaster or mapepire zanana, Lachesis muta, often leads to its being killed (Peters ). Rodriguez () claims that it looks “exactly like a young Mapepire zananna,” though its very thin body, arboreal habits, and smooth scales should soon dispel this resemblance. Morean (a) is incorrect when he states that this snake “bears resemblance to the true corals.” Genus: Leptodeira Fitzinger Leptodeira Fitzinger  Leptodeira annulata ashmeadi (Hallowell ) False Mapepire Plate  : TRINIDAD—MCZ (Garman ); SMF c (Boettger ); RMNH. (Brongersma ); AMNH , FMNH , MCZ ; Brickfield, FMNH ; Cedros, AMNH –; Churchill-Roosevelt Highway, AMNH ; Freeman Road, AMNH ; Mayaro, AMNH ; UF ; Mt. St. Benedict, CM –; Port of Spain, UF ; San Raphael, FMNH ; St. Augustine, AMNH ; St. Joseph, AMNH ; south coast, SMF ; Tucker Valley, AMNH (),  (Duellman ); FMNH , , , , , , ; USNM ,  (Murphy ). TOBAGO—MCZ (Barbour b); AMNH ; MCZ –, ; USNM , ,  (Murphy ). : This is a small (maximum length  mm), light brown snake with a series of – darker spots and blotches on the dorsal surface, and it often has a Y-shaped spot on the nape. The belly is pure cream in color. The head is distinct from the body. Adult females are slightly larger than males. The Trinidad and Tobago form has been found to be smaller than that from mainland Venezuela (Duellman ). : Trinidad, Tobago, Huevos Island (Emsley ; and see comment under Range in Atractus trilineatus account), Gaspar Grande Island (Boos ), northern coast of South America, Margarita Island, Venezuela.  : False mapepire, cat-eyed snake, cat-eyed night snake, banded night snake, annulated night snake, night snake, mapepire (Mole a); mapipire valsyn, mapipire boleyn, mapepire barsin (Mole b); garden snake, chunkhead (Emsley ); Trinidad garden snake (Riley and Winch ).  : One of the commonest snakes in Trinidad, this species is often found in houses, under piles of discarded wood or rubble associated with disused garages, and under piles of leaves in unkempt yards. It is mostly nocturnal, though it is sometimes active during rainy periods. It feeds readily in captivity on frogs, lizards, tadpoles, and fish and at times is cannibalistic. Mole and Urich

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(b) reported that one consumed its own eggs. It is back-fanged, and its saliva is toxic to a great degree against Anolis lizards. It will possibly take fledgling birds, as it climbs up into low trees. One specimen was collected from the rotten hollow area at the top of a dead pawpaw tree (Carica papaya). Duellman () noted in the stomach contents a species of Leptodactylid frog, the lizard Gonatodes vittatus, and the toxic-skinned toad Bufo marinus. Riley (; Riley and Winch ; Riley et al. ) noted the laying of eggs in the nest of Acromyrex octospinosus, leaf-cutting ants. Rodriguez () noted  to  eggs laid. Wehekind () recorded measurements for four eggs laid on August  as  x  mm,  x  mm,  x  mm, and  x  mm. In another species of Leptodeira in captivity, eggs were laid, some fertile, over a period of five years though there was no mating, indicating the retention of viable sperm over this period (Duellman ). Though it can seldom be induced to strike and bite, on occasion, when injured, this snake does react savagely. With markings superficially like those of the bushmaster or mapepire zanana, Lachesis muta, it stands little chance of not being killed when it turns up in food-rich gardens in the countryside or towns. It coils defensively, similar to the venomous vipers, and this earned it the older common name mapepire valsyn, which is now used only for Bothrops atrox. Krintler () incorrectly states that this snake is confused with Bothrops atrox, and as with the preceding species, Morean (a) incorrectly states that “it bears resemblance to the true corals” (p. ). Genus: Ninia Baird and Girard Ninia Baird and Girard Ninia atrata (Hallowell ) Red-nape Snake, Ring Neck Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (Mole and Urich, ex Boettger a); SMF ,a, a (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux ); USNM , (Jenner and Dowling ). TOBAGO—USNM – (Hardy, pers. comm., ); FMNH , –, , , ; MCZ  ,, , , – (Murphy ). : This is a small ( mm) terrestrial snake. The dorsal surface is black, with distinctly keeled scales, giving a velvety look. The belly is pure white. The back of the head and nape of the neck are red or pink, forming a collar or band extending on the side of the head to the upper labials. The pink collar may fade to dirty yellow or darken to red-black. Note: Mole’s (b) assignment of the Trinidad specimens to Boulenger’s () variety B, which had a “distinct yellowish collar or occipital blotch,” was probably correct due to the fact that in preservative the pink blotch would have faded to dirty yellow.

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: Trinidad, Tobago, southern Central America, Ecuador, Venezuela. local names: Collared snake, ring-necked coffee snake, ring-neck snake, coffee snake, red-nape snake.  : Little is known about this small snake, which is fairly common in the leaf litter of the forested areas of the Northern Range. Its food probably consists mainly of invertebrates. Trials in captivity with blowfly larvae were successful; one larva placed into the terrarium as a possible food item could not be found some time later. Rodriguez () noted insect larvae and termites as food. Murphy () reports slugs (Gastropoda) and slug eggs from stomach contents of four specimens. Welch () reported one specimen eating a slug. The finely keeled scales give this snake a velvety appearance. Rodriguez () noted that it was eaten by Bothrops, and Williams () found specimens in the stomach contents of a mongoose. Genus: Sibon Fitzinger Sibon Fitzinger  Sibon nebulata nebulata (Linnaeus ) Clouded Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (Sclater ); SMF c (Boettger ); BMNH Register (); AMNH , MCZ , FMNH – (Brickfield), AMNH  (Caura Sanitarium), MCZ  (Macqueripe Bay), CM , 

Fig. 31. Sibon nebulata nebulata, cloudy snake. Blotched pattern resembles Bothrops.

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(Mt. St. Benedict), MCZ ,  (St. Augustine), FMNH  (San Rafael), FMNH – (Tucker Valley) (Peters a); FMNH  (Murphy ). TOBAGO—BMNH (n) (Boulenger ); MCZ (Barbour b); MCZ , ; AMNH  (Bacolet River); AMNH  (Scarborough) (Peters a).  (fig. ): This is a small, slender snake, up to  mm. There is mottled gray and purplish brown banding and spotting over the entire dorsal surface, with some dirty white areas. The scales have a bluish iridescence that gives the effect of an overlying cloudy sheen. The belly has a pattern of dark blue-black half-bands alternating with dirty white. The head is large, with eyes prominent. The snake habitually coils and makes mock strikes. : Trinidad, Tobago, Huevos Island (Emsley , Boos b; and see comment under Range in Atractus trilineatus account), central and northern South America. local names: Clouded snake, cloudy snake, cloud snake, slug-eating snake, mapepire corde violon, fiddle-string mapepire. Note: Mole (b) noted the confusion of the name “mapepire corde violon” applied both to this species and to Imantodes.  : This snake prefers damp fossorial habitat under leaf litter and detritus where slugs, its main food source, are found. It is thought to eat slugs exclusively (Wehekind ), though tree snails extracted from the shells have been accepted in captivity. Both Winstrel () and Mattison () state that Sibon eats snails. In , a small specimen was captured with an immature land snail, Strophocheilus oblongus, in its mouth, and though it ejected its intended prey when it was disturbed, it is possible that immature and brittle-shelled individuals can and may be eaten. This is an egg-laying species (see fig. ); a clutch of five was laid in September (Wehekind ). These eggs were round and measured  x  mm. Sibon mimics the coiling and striking posture of Bothrops, which it superficially resembles, but the strike is with the mouth shut (Mole b), and it has never been recorded to bite.

Fig. 32. Sibon nebulata nebulata, cloudy snake. Adult specimen with eggs.

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Subfamily: Colubrinae Genus: Chironius Fitzinger Chironius Fitzinger  Chironius carinatus carinatus (Linnaeus) Machete Savane Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH var. A (e) (Boulenger ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE (Roux ); RMNH – (Brongersma ); BMNH (g) (Gunther ); AMNH , , , , , AP, , BMNH ..., USNM , , , ZMUC , FMNH , AMNH , , , , FMNH , , , BMNH ., USNM  (Dixon et al. ); FMNH  –, , ,  (Murphy ). Note: Murphy’s () FMNH  and  are specimens of C. multiventris septentrionalis (see following account).  (see appendix 2): This is a slender, dark olive-green to black snake, with some dorsal rows of keeled scales. The back is sharp-ridged, with lighter middorsal stripe. There are  scale rows: ventral scales in males number – , in females –; subcaudals are paired, in male –, female – . The head is large and distinct from the narrow neck. Eyes are large. Color under the chin and neck and on the belly is bright yellow; yellow spots are on the first rows of dorsal scales on body and tail. Hatchlings are  cm long, adults to . m (Beebe ; Emsley ). Mole (b) lists a specimen from Aripo at over  feet. : Trinidad, Eastern Venezuela, Guianas, Brazil north of Amazon River. A recent record on Chacachacare Island (REAL ) is a misidentification of Mastigodryas.  : Yellow machete, machete, machete savane, macheta, golden tree snake; carinated snake (Sclater ), macheta (Mole and Urich ).  : Diurnal and both terrestrial and arboreal, this species also takes to water readily to escape. It eats frogs (Hyla punctatissima, Brongersma ) and mice and birds (Wehekind ). Dixon et al. () noted that it fed on leptodactylid frogs, the aquatic frog Pseudis paradoxis, and the lizard Cnemidophorus lemniscatus. It lays up to five eggs,  inches long (Mole and Urich , b). One specimen was eaten by Drymarchon corais (Mole c) and Field () speculated that its apparent rarity might have been due to predation by the introduced mongoose. Aggressive and pugnacious, it bites freely as a defense and rattles its tail vigorously, also inflating its neck region when annoyed, to expose the white skin between the scales. Greenhall () listed it as “potentially dangerous,” possibly due to its aggressiveness and willingness to bite when disturbed, echoing

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earlier observations (Mole c) that “a bite from these reptiles, though not dangerous is not pleasant.” When first caught—and often the only way to do this is to grab whatever portion of the swiftly disappearing hind section of the snake is still within reach—the machete savane will strike at the capturer’s face or hands like an uncoiling spring. In most cases this is enough to allow it to be released and make its escape. Brennan and Jones () found the ectoparasitic chiggers Eutrombicula a. alfreddugesi and E. goldii on this species, and the parasitic ticks Amblyomma dissimile and another undescribed species were reported by Dixon et al. (). Everard () found the protozoan parasite Haemogregarina in Trinidadian specimens, and Shipley () found the lung parasite Porocephalus herpetodryados in a specimen from Honduras. Mole and Urich () noted several color varieties of this snake, which may be accounted for by the species descriptions that follow. : Mole (c, ), upon sighting a large specimen of “yellow Machete” whilst hunting “alligators” (Caiman crocodilus) from a small boat on the Caroni River, described its slender beauty, and opined that the biblical tempter of Eve must have been this species and not the usually pictured python or boa constrictor. Mole could not resist the biblical references linking snakes with Satan and original sin, an attitude still used worldwide to justify hatred, fear, and slaughter of snakes, but he places a unique twist to his description in making the snake too beautiful—rather than cunning—for fickle Eve to resist. Chironius multiventris septentrionalis Weist  Long-tailed Machete Savane Plate  : TRINIDAD—SMF a, e (Boettger ); AMNH , , , BMNH ..., UMMZ  (no locality), AMNH  (Caura River bank), AMNH  (Cumaca), AMNH  (foothills Guanapo Reserve  miles N. Aripo road, Eastern Main Road junction, Arima), NMBE  (Mt. Harris), AMNH – (east slope Mt. Tamana), FMNH , ,  (San Rafael), AMNH  (tree station, Rio Grande Forest, Sangre Grande), AMNH  (Valencia Old Road, Sangre Grande) (Dixon et al. ).  (fig. ; see also appendix ): This is a slender, dark olive-brown snake with a pale vertebral stripe. The top of head may be darker olive. Its back is sharply ridged, with only two rows of keeled scales on each side of the vertebral row. Some crossbanding may be seen in juveniles at midbody and tail. There is pale yellow under the chin, lips, throat, and on anterior ventrals, darkening to general body color at midbody and tail. There is no body spotting on scale rows up from ventrals. Eyes are large, and the neck is distinct. This species is distinguished from Chironius carinatus carinatus by its higher ventral and subcaudal counts: ventrals, male –, female –; subcaudals paired, male –

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Fig. 33. Chironius multiventris septentrionalis, long-tailed machete savane. Three postocular scales are sometimes distinctive.

, female –. Many specimens have three postoculars instead of two. : Trinidad, northern Venezuela.  : Machete savane; (suggested) long-tailed machete savane.  : Only recently recognized as a separate species, differing in several minor details of its outward appearance from C. c. carinatus but mainly in having a proportionately longer tail. Its habits are possibly similar to those of carinatus, though Dixon et al. (), using the collection localities of the specimens identified, state that it is a lowland inhabitant on Trinidad. Mainly diurnal, it is both terrestrial and arboreal, swift-moving, and aggressive. It is an egg layer and feeds mainly on frogs of the families Hylidae and Leptodactylidae (Dixon et al. ). : In “A Preliminary List of the Reptiles and Batrachians of the Island of Trinidad” (Mole and Urich a) is listed as new to the island “Herpetodryas (= Chironius) macrophthalmus Jan?” Specimens collected by A. B. Carr had been sent to Boulenger at the BNMH and to Boettger in Frankfurt, who tentatively identified the one he received as H. macrophthalmus. The details of scalation given for this specimen were: scale rows , ventrals , subcaudals  pairs +  terminal scale. These data fall neatly into the parameters given by Dixon et al. () for Chironius multiventris septentrionalis. Three more specimens, identified again by Boettger with SR , V –, and SC –, were again listed by Mole and Urich (), but this time they cautiously placed “macrophthalma” JAN as a

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variety of Chironius carinatus (L). Boettger () followed up this relegation of macrophthalmus to the status of a variety of Herpetodryas (= Chironius) carinatus in his subsequent listing of the four Mole and Urich specimens in his Katalog. Thus in later years this early listing of a possibly valid species was sloughed off as only an aberrant variety of the more familiar C. carinatus. The specimens listed by Dixon et al. () for both C. carinatus and C. multiventris as coming from Trinidad exclude any from the museum in Frankfurt am Main (SMF) to which Mole and Urich (a, ) had sent specimens. It is possible therefore that C. macrophthalmus should have precedence over C. multiventris. Chironius scurrulus (Wagler ) Smooth Machete Savane : TRINIDAD—UMMZ , no specified location (Dixon et al. ). : This description is based on a single specimen that differs from the other two species in having only  scale rows at midbody, an entire anal plate, and no keeling on the dorsal scales. This is a slim, long (. m maximum length) snake. The young are dark blue-black or green, adults lighter yellow or yellowbrown. The scale counts are: ventrals, male –, female –; subcaudals paired, male –, female –. : Trinidad, northern tropical South America.  : None in use  : Nothing is known about this snake’s habits on Trinidad, if in fact it is confirmed to be here, as its presence is based on only one specimen in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology. In South America it feeds on frogs and lizards (Dixon et al. ). Note: In  E. B. Williamson deposited in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology  herpetological specimens collected in British Guiana (now Guyana) and Trinidad, the collection numbers almost exactly alternating between these two countries. No locality data were recorded for the six specimens (two snakes and four anurans) from Trinidad (Schneider, pers. comm., ). The reason for this odd system of numbering is unknown, and the lack of definite locality data for UMMZ  certainly opens the occurrence of C. scurrulus on Trinidad to question. Dixon et al. (:) note that “few specimens have been recorded from Venezuela,” from which fauna the snakes of Trinidad differ little. Genus: Drymarchon Fitzinger Drymarchon Fitzinger  Drymarchon corais corais (Boie ) Yellow-tail Cribo Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (h) (Gunther ); BMNH var. A (a) (Boulenger ); SMF a (Boettger ); USNM , A, AMNH , ,

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Fig. 34. Drymarchon corais corais, yellow-tail cribo. An immature with pale gray tail that will probably become yellow.

, , MCZ  (Amaral d); RMNH  (Brongersma ). TOBAGO—MCZ (Barbour b); MCZ  (Amaral d); USNM ,  (Murphy ).  (fig. ; see also appendix ): This is a large (. m, Amaral d), heavy-bodied, diurnal snake. The body is blue-black, the color breaking up and becoming dirty orange-yellow on the hind half or third of body. The fore body and area under the neck are dark yellow or orange. Upper labials and rostral are yellow. Scales are keeled. Juveniles are paler grayish black, with a pale dirty white or yellow tail area. Scales on the head are dirty white outlined in black. : Trinidad, Tobago, Monos Island, Amazonia from Venezuela to Argentina.  : Cribo; yellow-tail cribo; clibo; yellow tail rat snake; gopher or indigo snake (Greenhall ); corais snake (Zoological Society of London ).  : This large diurnal snake is both arboreal and terrestrial and also possibly lives in the spaces created beneath the jungle floor by erosion and in the deep burrows of mammals. It is swift-moving and aggressive, many accounts of this behavior appearing in the earlier literature and travel guides. In , de Verteuil tells of one of these snakes chasing a man; it is described as standing on its tail and inflating its neck and throat. I have not seen this throatinflating display, and it may have been Pseustes sulphureus that de Verteuil was describing, but it is possible that Drymarchon displays this aggressive behavior. However, the further description, surely a fantasy, of this snake emitting “a fetid

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and sickening breath which caused a sort of fainting sensation” is only a repeat of the common superstition of the time, though Mole (b) did note that upon capture of one of these snakes there was an offensive smell, no doubt a result of the release of feces and anal glandular exudate, which in many snakes is extremely foul-smelling, and which is familiar to snake collectors. Similarly, de Verteuil speaks convincingly of the hypnotic power and fascination of the eye of this snake. Beebe () tells another common superstitious tale of the propensity of some snakes—Drymarchon in Guyana, Oxybelis and possibly Leptophis in Trinidad—to recognize, single out, and beat pregnant women and thereby cause the child to be delivered. This species was doubtless well known in the early twentieth century, for even Theodore Roosevelt (), when he visited Trinidad, wrote of Drymarchon’s snake-eating habits and noted that “Mole’s Mussurama” was not the only species so disposed on the island. Country people, too, had a rare good word for this snake due to its habit of eating both Bothrops and Lachesis (Mole ), a similar tolerance being expressed for Clelia up to present times. Though it may at one time have been a fairly common and readily recognized snake, for Taylor () shot and killed a “cribo” near the guacharo (oil bird, Steatornis caripensis) cave on what is now known as the Asa Wright Nature Centre, it seems to have become increasingly rare recently (Boos b). Urich () noted its rarity and speculated that the mongoose may have been the cause. In the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture report for , which was probably prepared by F. W. Urich, it is noted that this was formerly a common snake, after a report by a Mr. Orde, in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper () indicating that the Trinidad “cribo” had become “extremely rare.” Worth () noted that it was common on Bush Bush Island in the Nariva Swamp. The yellow-tail cribo is reported to eat rats, mice, birds, and domestic chicks, and it is well recorded to be a fierce consumer of snakes, both nonvenomous (Epicrates cenchria, Chironius carinatus; Mole c) and the venomous Lachesis (Mole a). Frogs and fish are taken too, including freshly caught marine species (Field Naturalists’ Club a; Wehekind ). Beebe () recorded as food items opossums (Didelphis), lizards (Ameiva), spiny rats (Proechemys), venomous snakes (Bothrops sp.), and even the toad Bufo marinus, an amphibian few snakes choose to, or can, consume due to its toxic skin secretions. Mole (b) speculated that this snake was immune to some extent to the bites of the viperids upon which it fed, but wondered if it was immune to bites from corals, the Elapidae. No doubt he was drawing an analogy from experiments made with Clelia (see Clelia species account). A specimen approximately  m long, caught by Peter Dickson around  on the Paria Main Road along the north coast of Trinidad, was devoid of skin on about one third of the skull on one side. It was also missing an eye, on the same side. The surrounding skin

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and scales were perfectly healed up. I can only speculate that this was the result of a bite from one of the pit vipers upon which it was attempting to feed. The venom must have caused some damage to the thin flesh, skin, and scales surrounding the bite, and the necrotic tissue had sloughed off at the next and subsequent ecdyses. The specimen lived and fed in captivity for two months before dying of unknown causes. Emsley () stated that one specimen had lived  years in captivity. De Verteuil () recorded individuals up to  feet long, and the first specimen I ever saw from the Turure Forest near Sangre Grande measured  feet exactly when stretched out dead. Mole and Urich (b) recorded this snake laying between  and  eggs; Brongersma () reported  eggs in the oviduct of a specimen from Venezuela. Genus: Leptophis Bell Leptophis Bell  Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus (Oliver ) Lora, Parrot Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (b, c, d) (Boulenger ); SMF a, e (Boettger ); MCZ (Barbour a); AMNH , USNM –, , , , , MCZ , CM , AMNH – (Oliver ); SMF  (Brongersma ); CM  (Oliver b); FMNH , , , , , , , , –, USNM  (Murphy ). TOBAGO—BMNH (k) (Gunther ); same as BMNH (a) (Boulenger ); MCZ (Barbour b); MCZ –, – (Oliver ); AMNH ; USNM , , , – (Murphy ). : The top of the head and dorsal surface are a bright blue-green. Two bright golden yellow dorsolateral stripes separate the dorsal color from the dirty-white ventral surface. Scales are keeled. There is a broad black postocular stripe. Maximum size is to  cm. Tobago specimens tend to have higher ventral and subcaudal scale counts. : Trinidad, Tobago, north coastal region of Venezuela.  : Lora, parrot snake, laura, green horse-whip, green machete, banded tree snake, whiplash (Emsley ), green rigoise.  : Both arboreal and terrestrial, this is a diurnal snake that feeds on lizards, frogs, and small birds; one specimen in captivity ate a small snake (Leptodeira annulata). Anolis lizards bitten by this snake and then released soon die; the secretions from the teeth seem to be prey-specific. After a bite from this species, my thumb showed a clear crescent of punctures made by the teeth in the snake’s upper jaw, with two larger wounds from the enlarged teeth at the back of the jaw, conforming to Oliver’s () description: “The maxillary teeth

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number – . . . the last three are enlarged.” This bite caused slight swelling and an itching, stinging sensation, confirming earlier records (Mole b). Wistrel () also recorded a bite and the burning sensation afterward. This snake is usually classified as an “aglyph”—that is, “without fangs”—but Ditmars () referred to it species as “rear-fanged.” Greenhall () listed it as “potentially dangerous” as it is quite aggressive, opening its mouth to show the shellpink lining and biting readily if annoyed or captured. Beebe () found earthworms, eels, and myriapod insects in the stomach contents. Brennan and Jones () found this species to be host to the ectoparasites Eutrombicula alfreddugesi alfreddugesi, E. a. tropica, E. goldii, Trombicular longicalcar, and T. sinnamaryi. Two references in novels to this species establish or perpetuate the erroneous and superstitious belief that some snakes have the ability to “whip” humans. In , Wilkins told of pet snakes—including “a horse-whip snake, green”—kept by an obeah man, who capitalized on the superstitious “belief that it whips to death any stray Negro it can seize.” More recently, Hercules () likened the clicking of boot heels to the sound a snake makes “when it is whipping a pregnant woman.” The tellers or recorders of these tales throw no more light on the matter when obvious questions are asked, such as how the snake can tell that the “whipped” woman is pregnant or what race a man may be. Such beliefs or attitudes should have no place in today’s world. Leptophis stimsoni Harding  Gray Lora Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH ... (Oliver ); USNM – (Wynn ). : This is a small snake ( mm), similar in shape to Leptophis ahaetulla but light silver-gray on the upper body, with a light tan belly and two light dorsolateral lines along the body. There is a dark postocular stripe separating the darker brown upper head from the immaculate white lower labials and underside of the head. The upper iris of the eye is gold. Scales are keeled. : Trinidad.  : None in use.  : Little is known about this rare snake in Trinidad. Recently, two specimens were collected to the east and west of the collection site for the first specimen, in dense forest or agricultural plantations in the northern range of mountains. They were collected in low undergrowth among Selagenella plants. The species probably feeds on small frogs and lizards; Oliver (:) recorded a hylid frog in the stomach contents of a specimen of L. riveti (= L. stimsoni) from an unstated locality (not Trinidad). It opens its mouth in a defensive display to show the purple-black lining.

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Note: This rare little snake has an interesting history in Trinidad. Ivan T. Sanderson visited Trinidad in , when he collected a snake specimen from a bromeliad in a tree at the summit of the island’s highest mountain, El Cerro del Aripo. Lodged in the British Museum of Natural History in London, it was considered by Oliver, who published a major paper on the genus (then called Thalerophis) in  and designated this snake Thalerophis riveti (= Leptophis riveti), lumping it together with specimens from as far afield as Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Peru. Baffled by this disparate distributional problem, for which he had no ready answer, Oliver noted that the faraway South American specimens—like the Trinidadian snake, if Sanderson was to be believed—had been collected at altitudes over , feet. El Cerro del Aripo barely made it at , feet. Peters (b) listed the single record for Trinidad. Voicing the same doubts as Oliver, Emsley (:) noted that “with it is a specimen of L. ahaetulla coeruleodorsus from Tobago” and suggested that it was “probable that both were taken on the same trip.” In  Emsley once again expressed his doubt of this record, saying that it might have been “a collector’s error” and that its inclusion in the list of snakes for Trinidad “must be viewed with caution” (p. ). This caution came after its inclusion in the “Checklist of Trinidad Snakes” (Boos a), where I had noted the spelling error of the specific name (reveti for riveti) in Emsley (). Greenhall () listed the species for Tobago but questioned its inclusion, and Hardy () encapsulated the argument by stating that the Tobago inclusion by Emsley and Greenhall “is pure speculation.” In ,  years after Sanderson collected his specimen at , feet on top of El Cerro del Aripo, a specimen was collected (Boos a, b) on the trail to the Oropouche Caves in the Cumaca area of the Northern Range, at an elevation of approximately  feet and about  km east of El Cerro del Aripo’s peak as the crow flies. As fate would have it, about two weeks later Graham White brought in a second specimen, collected on the Las Lapas trail  km west of El Cerro del Aripo at approximately , feet. The two specimens were registered at the USNM as numbers  and  respectively (Wynn ). Graham White caught another on the Oropouche Caves trail on April , , but released it as a conservation gesture. Peter Dickson reports collecting another specimen from the Rincon area in the hills behind Las Cuevas Bay, on the northern face of the Northern Range, and yet another specimen was reported by a villager in the same area. The last two mentioned escaped, but were both within the reported . m length. The specimens USNM  and  compare in morphology, scale counts, and size to the British Museum specimen BMNH ..., which has been recently described by Harding () as a new, endemic species from Trinidad—L. stimsoni. Not having seen a living specimen, he erroneously says that it is green. Murphy () gives details of head scalation and says that the lack of a loreal scale distinguishes it from L. ahaetulla

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coeruleodorsus. The “oblique, dark bands on the body” of adults (Murphy ) are not apparent in the living specimens from Trinidad, which Harding () surmises are juveniles. Genus: Mastigodryas Amaral Mastigodryas Amaral  Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti (Sentzen ) Machete Couesse Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—MCZ (Garman ); BMNH var. C (b) (Boulenger ); SMF e, c (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux ); BMNH ..., ..., ...–, ..., ... (Patos Island), (Brongersma ); AMNH , ; BMNH ..., ...–, ...; MCZ ; USNM , –, –, –; AMNH , Patas (= Patos) Island (Stuart ); FMNH ; MCZ –; USNM , ; MCZ , Chacachacare Island (Murphy ). : This is a slim, all-brown snake (up to , mm), with two light dorsolateral lines running the entire length of the body and a slightly lighter line on the last dorsal scale rows where they join the ventral scales. Belly is light creamy yellow, underside of chin is yellow or dirty white. The immatures (fig. ) are dorsally marked with alternate bars of dark brown and lighter brown (scales edged in black); below the dorsolateral line there are dark blotches stretching to the ventrals, alternating with the upper light areas, almost forming a checkerboard pattern. These darker blotches coalesce on the tail to form a solid color. The lower labials are white outlined with black. There is a dark stripe from the nasal through the eye and to the angle of the mouth, separating the darker color on top of the head from the lighter upper labials and lower chin shields. The islands of Monos, Huevos, and Chacachacare, stretching west from Trinidad toward the island of Patos and the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela, have color variations of this species, ranging from the mainland pattern on Monos, to a light green with each scale outlined with black to give a netted or reticulated pattern on Chacachacare. The upper labials and underside of the head are yellow or dirty white. : Trinidad, including the islands of Monos (Manuel ), Huevos (Boos ), Chacachacare, Gaspar Grande or Gasparee, and Caledonia (Temple ); Venezuelan mainland and Patos Island; Guianas, tropical South America. Lall and Hayes () incorrectly record it as new to Chacachacare Island.  : Machete couesse, machete couresse, grass machete; Boddaert’s snake (Zoological Society of London ); brown-lined snake, grass snake, white snake, Boddaert’s coluber, “ratonera” (Patos Island, Phelps and Phelps ).  : The presence of this species on five of the islands that lie be-

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Fig. 35. Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti, machete couesse. Immature with disruptive checkered pattern.

tween Trinidad and mainland Venezuela (Boos b; Temple ) presents an interesting field of study for future investigators. The form found on Trinidad is reported to be the same as that found on the nearest of the islands, Gaspar Grande (Mole b). On Monos Island some individuals are colored similarly to those on Trinidad and others which are pale greenish brown with the dorsal scales outlined in black to form a reticulated pattern. This color variation and pattern is more pronounced on the next westernmost island, Huevos. On Chacachacare, the specimens are light green-brown, with each scale distinctly outlined with black and the dorsolateral line lying between black-edged borders. The facial stripe is dark brown, separating the olive-brown top of the head from the paler upper labials and underside of the head, which are either bright yellow or gray-white. A terrestrial and partially arboreal snake, the machete couesse feeds on young birds, lizards, mice, and chicks (Wehekind ). Mole (c) observed one chasing a cricket. The young feed on small lizards and frogs (Mole a). Beebe () noted that it fed on frogs, reptile eggs, Ameiva lizards, nestling birds, and grasshoppers. One specimen on Chacachacare fell out of a low manchineel tree into the lap of a camper. On this island their food consists of lizards (Cnemidophorus lemniscatus and Ameiva ameiva), which are abundant, and possibly the scarcer Anolis chrysolepis.

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Once common (Urich ), the species was considered to be becoming rare due to predation by the mongoose (Mole b, ); Williams (), however, indicated that stomach contents of mongooses held few snakes. Though fairly aggressive when captured, and though it vibrates its tail when agitated or threatened, in captivity it does not deserve Greenhall’s () assessment as “potentially dangerous.” Gilliard () mentions its arboreal habits and its pugnacity. I watched an individual dash out of roadside bushes in the Cumaca Valley in the Northern Range to seize a juvenile Ameiva ameiva atrigularis basking on the sun-warmed asphalt. A fierce battle ensued until both were captured, whereupon the snake released its hold on the lizard. Both prey and predator were then released. This snake is an egg layer and young have been observed in January (Mole ). : Having reference only to Peters and Orejas-Miranda (), I attempted to untangle the rather confused taxonomy for Mastigodryas found on Trinidad and on Tobago (Boos a), taking into consideration the color variations between the mainland forms and those on the offshore islands of Gaspar Grande, Monos, Huevos, Chacachacare, and Patos. At the time the presence of M. amarali and M. boddaerti dunni on Tobago was accepted. Specimens from these offshore islands are yet to be collected systematically and assessed as to whether they have closer affinities to the Venezuelan amarali or pleei group (Stuart ) or to the boddaerti group found on Trinidad, on Tobago, and in South America, for these island forms are almost consistently differently patterned than those found on either Trinidad or Tobago. Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni (Stuart ) Machete Couesse : TOBAGO—SMF (Boettger a, b); SMF a (Boettger ); MCZ (Barbour b); SMF , –, BMNH ... (Brongersma ); MCZ ,  (Stuart ); FMNH ; USNM , –, , AMNH  (Murphy ). : This is a slim, golden-brown snake with a light cream or white ventral surface, the chin and neck area being yellow or gray-white. There are two lighter dorsolateral lines on each side of the body, the upper one lighter and narrower than the lower one, which borders the ventrals. These two light lines are separated by a brown line the same color as the dorsum. Maximum size is  m. : Tobago, Little Tobago Island.  : Machete couesse, machete couresse.  : Little is known about the natural history of this snake on Tobago, but its habits, habitat preference, and food are presumably similar to those of M. boddaerti boddaerti on Trinidad and throughout its range. In captivity it feeds on lizards and small mice. One dead specimen was collected near Charlotteville,

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partially eaten by Pseudoboa neuwiedii. These snakes are fairly common on Little Tobago Island (Dinsmore , ), where lizards—Anolis richardi, Cnemidophorus lemniscatus, and Ameiva ameiva—are found in abundance as well. Gilliard () described that this species, though he did not specify it scientifically, on Little Tobago Island, reared up like a “little cobra” and struck aggressively after the author, in defense, had thrown a handful of pebbles at it. Dinsmore () found the ectoparasitic tick Amblyomma dissimile on the snakes caught on Little Tobago Island. : First described by Stuart () as Eudryas dunni, the genus was changed to Dryadophis (Stuart ), and the taxon was then given subspecific status to that of D. boddaerti (Stuart ). Peters and Orejas-Miranda () made a new combination and listed Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni, although the genus to which it had been assigned by Underwood () and de Verteuil (b) had been Drymobius. Stuart () also described a new species of the genus being used then—Eudryas—from Margarita Island, off the north coast of Venezuela, as Eudryas amarali. He listed as one of the paratypes USNM , which, it was claimed, had been collected on Tobago by Ober and had been identified by Cope in  as Drymobius boddaerti. Cope had noted that the Tobago specimen, with  ventral scales and  subcaudal scales, giving an overall total of  scales, which was higher than in any of the other specimens from Margarita and Venezuela to which it was compared and thereby named it M. amarali as well. Stuart admitted to being unable to explain the absence of this species, E. amarali, on Trinidad, given the knowledge available at that time. In —still maintaining that the specimen identified as having been collected on Tobago was amarali—Stuart supplied details of the scalation for another species, D. bruesi, found on Grenada, as ventrals – (average ), subcaudals – (); total ventrals – (). Stuart does not indicate on which individual specimen he based his illustration of the species amarali in plate , figure —that is, whether it was from Tobago. It is more than likely that it was one of the other available specimens from either Margarita Island or Venezuela, but the scale counts for USNM  (the Tobago specimen) D. amarali fall neatly within the tolerances of those given for D. bruesi by Stuart (:): ventrals – (), subcaudals – (), total – (). Roze () lists Dryadophis amarali from several localities, backed up with specimen numbers from Venezuela and Margarita Island, but then in his distribution states that it is also found on Tobago. Brongersma (), after examining material for boddaerti dunni and without “having seen the paratype” of amarali (USNM ), stated that the species amarali, including the Tobago specimen, was considered more closely related to the group found in Venezuela, but he felt that USNM  “may belong to D. boddaerti dunni.” Mertens () concurred. Tuck and Hardy () reviewed

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the collection of reptiles and amphibians made prior to  by Ober, supposedly on Tobago, and found that some of the specimens Cope () described as being from Tobago were not; the frog Eleutherodactylus martinicensis was more than likely collected on Dominica, the lizard Anolis roquet roquet was from Martinique, Bothrops lanceolatus was also only found on Martinique, and the Ameiva ameiva tobagana was probably collected not on Tobago but on Grenada. In regard to Stuart’s Tobago amarali, based on Ober’s collection, Tuck and Hardy argue convincingly that it is difficult to say where was actually collected and difficult to “form a definite opinion as to the identity” of USNM , due to the fact that the specimen now lacks “a clear pattern.” They point out that USNM , as already detailed, resembles in some aspects the species found on Grenada, the Grenadines, and St. Vincent and that Ober spent considerable time on Grenada; thus the inference is that the most likely identification of USNM  is that it is Mastigodryas bruesi. Since , M. amarali has continued to be listed wrongly as a species found on Tobago. Though Emsley () considered the name invalid, Maclean et al. () and Lancini (, ) still listed it. Having only Peters and OrejasMiranda () for reference, I incorrectly suggested (Boos a) that M. b. dunni was the form found on Trinidad and listed it later (Boos a, a), but noted that those found on Tobago were probably M. boddaerti. Murphy (), though retaining accounts for both subspecies of M. boddaerti, states that “scale counts for the Trinidad and Tobago populations overlap, and it is probable that this race [the Tobago M. b. dunni] is not valid.” Undoubtedly, snakes found on Trinidad, Tobago, and the islands of Patos, Chacachacare, Huevos, Monos, Gaspar Grande, and Caledonia and assigned to Mastigodryas as boddaerti exhibit such variability as to warrant a comprehensive examination to determine their taxonomic status. Genus: Oxybelis Wagler Oxybelis Wagler  Oxybelis aeneus (Wagler ) Horsewhip Plate  : TRINIDAD—MCZ (Garman ); NMBE (Roux ); FMNH –, –, – (Murphy ). TOBAGO—SMF (Boettger a, b); MCZ (Barbour b); BMNH ..., MCZ , NMBE ,  (Keiser ). : This is an extremely thin, ashy gray or brown snake with a light or pale cream belly and yellow chin. There are darker spots or flecks on the dorsal scales. The head tapers to a sharp point. A black line from the nasal area, running through the eye, separates the dark brown on top of the head from the pale cream or yellow of the labials and chin. Maximum size is . m.

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: Trinidad, Tobago, Huevos Island (Keiser ), Chacachacare Island (Lall and Hayes ), southern United States through Mexico to northern South America. Note: Although Keiser () reports this snake from Huevos Island, it is possibly the same report questioned by Boos (b). Murphy () bases his distribution record for Huevos Island on this as well.  : Ash-colored horse-whip; rigoise argentée, sharp nosed tree snake (Ditmars a); pike-headed snake; tan horse-whip; ashy whip snake; liguis; rigoise (de Suze ); linguiz; horse whip; vine snake. The name “horse-whip” is probably derived from its resemblance to finely plaited leather (Boos and Quesnel ; Hilton ).  : A mainly diurnal and almost totally arboreal snake, this species is extremely well camouflaged. When an individual “freezes,” it looks much like a dry or dead twig, even swaying to simulate a twig moving in the breeze. The tongue may protrude and be held stiffly immobile, extending the charade, and the tip of the tongue may be bent to make the disguise even more complete (Mole a). Camouflage, however, can fail, as when one was pecked to death by an angry hen with chicks (West India Committee Circular ); another was seen being mobbed by a flock of wrens in Tobago (James Kirk, quoted in Jardine ) and was killed (Ober —in all probability this is the same story, repeated and altered by Ober). One of the species’ defense strategies is to exude a foul-smelling secretion from its anus (Wehekind a, b, c). When threatened or captured, individuals opens their jaws wide to expose the deep purple interior. They seldom bite, but on occasion will do so (Ditmars ). Greenhall () listed this snake as “potentially dangerous.” Its bite leaves an itching sensation or intense burning like the sting of a wasp; the mild secretions from the mouth are fatal to Anolis lizards (Greenhall ; Boos c). This snake feeds mainly on lizards (Mole and Urich b), but Beebe () found Ameiva and Anolis chrysolepis in its stomach contents, suggesting that in the search for food it will take mainly ground-dwelling lizards. Also eaten were frogs (Scinax rubra) and birds—a female manakin was noted. It is an egg layer (Mole and Urich b); Beebe () found three fully formed  mm x  mm eggs in a large female in March. Beebe () found several ticks adhering to the skin near the head. Brennan and Jones () found the ectoparasite Eutrombicula goldii. One specimen of Oxybelis aeneus was found in the stomach of the turkey vulture, Cathartes aura, in Tobago (Kirk, quoted in Jardine ). Note: For a time Patos Island, south of the Paria Peninsula of Venezuela, belonged to the Colony of Trinidad and Tobago, but on September , , it was handed over to Venezuela. Thus the snake Oxybelis fulgidus, which is found on this island (Williams ; Lancini ) and which had appeared in lists and

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accounts of Trinidad snakes by various authors (Beebe ; Oliver ; Wehekind , a, b, c; Underwood ; Greenhall , ) was lost to Trinidad and Tobago (Underwood ; Mertens ). Oxybelis aeneus was featured on a $. postage stamp issued on September , . : As early as , Court (in de Verteuil) reported the myth that this snake used its tail as an instrument for flogging antagonists. That belief is still often repeated, as is one about it waylaying and beating pregnant women (Crossham ; Mendes ). In some communities people also believe that some snakes, especially the “horsewhip,” creep up on a woman who has fallen asleep while breast-feeding an infant. Pushing aside the baby and placing its tail into the baby’s mouth as a pacifier, the snake suckles from the mother. The same belief has wide currency in Italy, where restlessness in babies has frequently been attributed to a serpent sucking the mother’s breast, while the displaced infant had to be content with the end of the serpent’s tail. A similar belief has prevailed in Wales from the most ancient times, Welsh folklore being especially rich in stories of intimate relations between women and serpents. Fielding (:) reports “a counterpart of the same idea represents serpents as stealing women’s milk. Among the Namaquas of southern Africa the serpent is said to be ‘very fond of woman’s milk.’ A Namaqua solemnly declared that he had known several instances where a serpent entered people’s dwellings at night, and if it met with a sleeping mother it dexterously abstracted the milk.” Superstitions from Italy, Wales, Africa and who knows where else have evidently transferred this belief to flavor the folklore surrounding snakes in Trinidad and Tobago. The belief has other parallels, such as the milk snakes in North America, which are alleged to steal milk from cows; this story surfaces from time to time in Trinidad too: “Villagers claim that Machettes and Tigers are the most common and at times the Balsain Mappipire and Macaquels [sic] are also on the pastures” (Bomb ). The connotations of the snake’s sexual attention, especially to the woman’s breasts, cannot be ignored, and has come down to us from some of the earliest writings. Lucian (– a.d.) stated that there were “serpents of an enormous size, but so quiet and mild that they are fondled by women,” and that they “suck the nipples of the breast like a nurseling” (Alexander, Works, :, quoted in Forberg :). In the works of Plutarch (–a.d.) is related the legend that Alexander the Great (– b.c.) was fathered by a snake his mother Olympias kept as a pet (Fielding :). These beliefs could hold no lasting credence in the face of knowledge of the snakes’ needle-sharp dentition and its effect if applied to the sensitive breasts of a lactating woman or the udder of a cow. In any event, the very construction of a snake’s mouth makes it impossible for it to “suck” in the same manner as mammalian young do.

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Genus: Pseustes Fitzinger Pseustes Fitzinger  Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis (Peters ) Dos Cocorite Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (Boulenger ); SMF , a; a (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux ); RMNH  (Brongersma ); USNM  (Crombie ); FMNH , , ,  (Murphy ). : Adults are up to . m long, light to dark matte leaf-green with a yellow underside of the head and first third of body, fading to light leaf green on the hind body and tail. Keeled scales form distinct ridges running along the body. The snake is both terrestrial and arboreal in habit. Young are remarkably different (fig. ) and seem to be mainly aboreal in the stage of life; a series of light brown, green, and dirty yellow blotches and bands form a cryptic pattern. The juvenile banding and pattern can still be seen on the interscale expanded skin of the adult. The eye in the juvenile is very prominent and proportionally larger than in the adult. When annoyed, this snake inflates its neck region to expose white and yellow skin between the scales in a striped pattern. The tail is vibrated when the snake is agitated; it strikes aggressively. Teeth are small and even. Although unlike the adults in appearance, the young and immatures are similar in aggressive behavior.

Fig. 36. Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis, dos cocorite. Immature showing large eye and pattern.

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: Trinidad, Venezuela, Guianas, Amazonian South America.  : Cutlah; dos cocorite (see discussion under Note); liana snake; birdeating snake; olive-brown snake (Zoological Society of London ; Sclater ); shapely snake (Zoological Society of London ; Sclater ); cutlass (Greenhall ); mahogany rat snake, puffing snake (Mehrtens ). Note: In the mid-sixties, Tommy Griffith, an old hunter, brought me a snake enclosed in a thick joint of bamboo sealed with a tight wad of leaves. When I had succeeded in extracting the snake from its cramped quarters, I was not immediately able to identify it. When I asked Tommy what he called it, or what it was known as, he said, “Dos cocorite”—that is, “cocorite back,” an apt description for the leaf-green, high-ridged dorsum of this snake; it is in fact very like a single leaflet of the cocorite palm, Attalea maripa.  : This snake seems to be mainly arboreal when young or juvenile, when its colors offer good camouflage. Adults are often collected on the ground and in swampy habitats. They feed mainly on frogs, lizards, bird eggs, nestling birds, birds, and rarely small mammals (Mole a, b, b). Beebe () found the bones of a small hawk, as well as bird egg shells, in stomach contents. Dixon and Soini () recorded that one specimen had eaten an egg from the nest of a Spix’s guan (Penelope jacquacu) in Peru. These snakes are sometimes found lying on the earth, perfectly still but positioned with regular ripples along the entire length of the body, as if imitating a section of monkey ladder vine, Bauhinia scala-simiae. Beebe () illustrates this strange behavior, and Peter Dickson photographed another snake lying thus in the center of a dirt road beyond Blanchisseuse Village on the north coast. The species is found throughout the forested areas of Trinidad, being quite commonly collected in the dense jungles of the Northern Range, at the Hollis Dam, the Heights of Aripo, Mayaro Point (British Museum ; Mole b), and the peak of Chaguaramal. The first specimen records for Trinidad came from Mayaro and Carenage. Individuals have also been collected from the Aripo Savanna (Schwab ). Everard () noted the parasite Raillietiella, a pentastomid, in this species, and Brennan and Jones () found the arachnid chigger species Eutrombicula alfreddugesi alfreddugesi and E. goldii. Though this snake is aggressive, inclined to strike and bite at every opportunity, all the while vibrating its tail furiously—and though Greenhall () listed it as “potentially dangerous,” perhaps because of this habit—its bite is innocuous. It chews on the part bitten, but its small teeth make only tiny puncture wounds. This chewing motion helps it swallow most of its prey alive. Rodriguez () noted a clutch of  eggs, and Dixon and Soini () noted hatchlings in Peru in March, August, and December. note: The first report of this species in Trinidad presents an interesting event in herpetological publishing history. R. R. Mole and F. W. Urich, in Trinidad, were

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in constant contact with G. A. Boulenger of the British Museum in London. When the second volume of the Catalogue of Snakes in the British Museum was published, a copy—or its advance proofs—must have been received in Trinidad at an early date in , for Mole and Urich (a) were able to publish “A Preliminary List of the Reptiles and Batrachians of the Island of Trinidad” in the Journal of the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club in August . They listed exactly (Mole and Urich a:) the reference to what Boulenger described in his Catalogue (, :) as Phrynonax eutropis (= Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis) and illustrated in plate , figure . Mole and Urich noted that this species was new to Trinidad, as described by Boulenger; that specimens collected from Caparo and Maraval had been exhibited at a meeting of the Field Naturalists’ Club on June , ; and that they had been able to publish their findings in the Journal, which carried the report of the meeting as well as their “Preliminary List.” This list had obviously been sent off to Boulenger at the British Museum; Boulenger then published an “Addenda and Corrigenda” to volume  of his Catalogue, recording on page  this species for Trinidad, quoting the bibliographical reference to the Journal of the Trinidad Field Naturalists’ Club of  (his page reference, , is incorrect). Boulenger did not state, as he did for other addenda, that the British Museum had received actual specimens to validate this record. To confuse the matter somewhat further, Boettger sent some notes back to Mole and Urich, which they used (Mole and Urich ) in their “Additions to the Reptilian and Batrachian Fauna of Trinidad,” based on a collection of specimens they had sent to him at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. These “notes” list as new to the island Phrynonax fasciatus (= Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis), using as the reference for identification for this species the listing in the Boulenger Catalogue (, :). It is not surprising that the specimen examined (a juvenile snake) was identified as a different species than the others known to be from Trinidad and present in the collection of the British Museum, for as already pointed out, there is considerable color difference and minor anatomical variation between the young and adults of this species. Amaral (c) placed both P. eutropis and P. fasciatus in synonymy with Phrynonax poecilonotus polylepis and noted that this species was found on “Trinidade.” By , Beebe, taking note of Brongersma (), used the genus Pseustes rather than Phrynonax in his list of the fauna of the Arima Valley (), and the use of this combination—Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis—became fixed and has been used since then by most authors. Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus (Wagler ) Yellow-bellied Puffing Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—SMF a (Boettger ); AMNH  (Amaral c); TRVL (Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory ); FMNH  (Murphy ),

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 (see appendix ): Adults are up to  m long. Females are matte black on dorsal surfaces with bright orange-yellow under the lower jaw and fore body, fading to black on hind two thirds of body; the top of the head is dark brown. Males have yellow and black striping on the fore body and yellow sides of the head. Keeled scales form distinct longitudinal ridges along length of the body. Three postocular scales distinguish this species from Spilotes pullatus and Drymarchon corais. Young are distinctly striped with yellow and dirty, brick-red lighter areas on the fore body. When the snake is annoyed, the bright yellow throat is inflated, the white interscale skin is exposed on the dorsal surface of the neck and fore body, and the tail is rapidly vibrated. : Trinidad, Guianas, Amazonian Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Ecuador. BricenoRossi () incorrectly lists Tobago (probably meaning the island Taboga, Panama) for this species.  : Yellow-bellied puffing snake, yellow bellied clibo, yellow-bellied puffer, yellow cribo, puffing snake, liana snake (Emsley ; Greenhall ), yellow belly.  : This is one of the largest nonvenomous, colubrid snakes in South America and in Trinidad. Mole (b) speculated that its comparative rarity is due to the fact that it is highly arboreal, living in the jungle canopy. However, I have captured specimens in the depths of the Tamana Cave in the

Fig. 37. Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus, yellow-bellied puffing snake. Caught in Tamana Cave, this adult measured 9 feet exactly.

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Fig. 38. Yellow-bellied puffing snake killed while eating Bothrops atrox. (From Trinidad Guardian Newspaper)

Central Range (Darlington ; Boos d) and on the trail to the Maracas waterfall. Some specimens are extremely aggressive, puffing out the throat (Downer ) and vibrating the tail noisily, while others can be gently handled with impunity. When they bite they are aggressive and tenacious, as many an unwary collector has found out. Greenhall () listed this species as “potentially dangerous.” These snakes feed on any small mammal they can chase down and subdue, and as several have been collected in and around the main entrance of Tamana Cave, they possibly take bats (Hill ). Young feed on small lizards, mice, and rats, and adults take birds as well. They also eat snakes, including the venomous vipers (fig. ). They have been noted to lay up to  eggs in June. The female seems to guard the eggs to some extent. A. de Verteuil () tells the amusing story of a “yellow bellied Clibo” chasing his grandfather after it had been stirred up, and of a second in fierce combat with another gentleman. Brennan and Jones () found the arachnid chiggers Eutrombicula a. alfreddugesi, E. goldii, and Trombicula longicalcar to be on this species.

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Genus: Spilotes Wagler Spilotes Wagler  Spilotes pullatus pullatus (Linnaeus ) Tigre, Tigro Plate  : TRINIDAD—SMF a, c (Boettger ); AMNH , , , , ,  (Amaral b); FMNH –, , ; MCZ , . (Murphy ). TOBAGO—SMF (Boettger a, b); SMF b (Boettger ); MCZ (Barbour b); SMF  (Brongersma ); SMF B (Sternfeld ); AMNH  (Amaral b); USNM – (Hardy ).  (see appendix ): This is a large black snake up to  m long with chrome-yellow stripes and markings on the face and fore body; sometimes it is pure black. There is yellow or orange skin between scales in the neck area. The belly and area below the tail are black. Juveniles are strikingly marked with black and yellow striping. : Trinidad, Tobago, Costa Rica, Panama to northern South America. Pure black specimens, known on Trinidad as tigro, have been collected in the Mt. Tamana area and on Tobago (Boettger a).  : Tigre, tigro (melanistic form), tiger snake, el tigre, tigrel, black tigre, South American rat snake, black and yellow rat snake, clibo; cribo noir (de Verteuil ); the widow (Mole and Urich ); black snake (Tobago, Ottley ).  : Highly arboreal, the tigre lives mostly in low trees, where it is an opportunistic feeder on birds and their eggs, lizards, frogs, and small mammals including squirrels and bats. It also takes domestic chicks. Prey is sometimes constricted or pressed against an object to hold it in place, then swallowed quickly, often while still alive (Bacon ). One individual was found to have swallowed three porcelain brooder eggs (Wehekind ). Individuals are sometimes found inside caves, where they are presumed to feed on bats, although the species is usually diurnal and is commonly seen in the low trees of cocoa and coffee plantations or at the edge of forest roads foraging for basking lizards (Ameiva). When threatened, the tigre inflates its neck to a great extent (Amaral b; see fig. , this volume) and, vibrating its tail vigorously, tries to bluff its way out of being cornered; it will bite savagely to defend itself or when captured. Due to its aggressiveness, Greenhall () lists it as “potentially dangerous.” This snake has a reputation for “running down” humans. Time and again stories are told of it chasing hunters. The truth is that Spilotes is probably highly territorial; discovered moving along a jungle trail, the snake has a fixed direction in which it wants to proceed. Being aggressive, it may not give way to anyone standing in its path, though it will flee swiftly if any attempt to capture it is made.

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Fig. 39. Spilotes pullatus pullatus, tigre. During aggressive or defensive display, interscale skin is exposed.

Mole (b) noted mating in captivity with P. eutropis (= Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis). Rodriguez () recorded  eggs laid, laying in August and November, and mating in May to June; In the Emperor Valley Zoo,  young hatched between June  and , , from eggs donated on June . Mating in captivity has been noted in March, and Dixon and Soini () noted hatchlings in Peru in March, July, and December. Amaral (e) photographed a clutch of nine eggs. Urich () speculated that the introduction of the mongoose to Trinidad accounted for the snake’s rarity. Everard () noted that it was host to the protozoan parasite Haemogregarina, and Brennan and Jones () recorded the ectoparasitic chiggers Eutrombicula a. alfreddugesi and E. goldii. Brongersma () noted a specimen with several ticks between the scales. : Sternfeld () described the form found on Tobago as Spilotes pullatus ater; Mertens () noted this subspecies but Peters and Orejas-Miranda () placed it in the synonymy of the nominate form, accepting the opinion of Amaral (b). Hardy (:) incorrectly used the subspecies niger for Sternfeld’s  S. p. ater.

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The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago

Genus: Tantilla Baird and Girard Tantilla Baird and Girard  Tantilla melanocephala (Linnaeus ) Black-headed Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—BMNH (Mole and Urich ); SMF a, c (Boettger ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE – (Roux ); RMNH  (Brongersma ); UF  (Diego Martin), NMBE  (Guayaguayare), AMNH  (Mt. Catherine), FMNH  (Piarco), MCZ  (Point-a-Pierre), UF , MCZ , ,  (Port of Spain), RT  (St. Ann’s Ward, . mi. N. San Juan), FMNH  (San Rafael), AMNH – (Simla), AMNH  (Toco), MCZ , AMNH –, –  (Tucker Valley) (Wilson and Mena ). TOBAGO—BMNH (b) (Boulenger ); BMNH (i) (Gunther ); MCZ  (Bacolet Guest House), AMNH  ( mi N. Roxborough), RT  (Scarborough-Bacolet Rd. burial ground), MCZ  (Wilson and Mena ). : This is a small ( cm), slim terrestrial snake, light greenish brown on the dorsum, with a thin darker middorsal stripe and two lateral light stripes near the ventral scales. The belly is light greenish white. The head is pale brown on top, with cream markings on the sides extending upward from pale cream under the chin. A pale dirty-white collar separates the dark head and body. There are two pale spots on the back of the head. : Trinidad, Tobago, Huevos Island (Emsley ; Boos b; and see comment under Range in Atractus trilineatus account); and in South America in Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname, Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and northern Argentina (Wilson ).  : Black-headed snake, black head (Emsley ), pink-headed snake, blackhead snake.  : Little is known about this widespread snake, which is fairly uncommon in Trinidad and Tobago. It is mainly terrestrial, living under rotting debris and leaf litter (Mole b). Beebe () and Wehekind () noted insects and “wood-roaches” as food, and Urich () reported a specimen trying to swallow a small centipede it had already killed. Rodriguez () notes egg laying. Dixon and Soini () found three “oviducal” eggs measuring  x  mm,  x  mm, and  x  mm in a specimen from Peru.

Family: Elapidae—Coral Snakes, Cobras, Mambas Elapidae Boie 1827 The venomous coral snakes, closely related to the cobras and mambas, are found in the Americas, the majority of species occurring in Central and South America.

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Fig. 40. Typical head scalation of family Elapidae. Note lack of loreal scale. (After Chippaux 1986)

In shape and general body structure they resemble the colubrids, differing mainly in the structure and dentition of the maxillary bone, which has limited rotation and which bears two anterior grooved or hollow fangs. The head scalation is similar to that of the colubrids except for the consistent lack of a loreal scale between the preocular and the nasals (fig. ). Body scales are smooth and the colors usually consist of a series of rings that go completely around the body, made up of varying combinations of red, black, and white or yellow. In Trinidad there are two species, the larger with triads of black rings separated by bright red rings, the smaller with single black rings outlined by narrow white rings and separated by red rings. These rings go completely around the body and across the ventrals. The venom of the coral snakes in Trinidad is neurotoxic. There are no coral snakes in Tobago. Genus: Micrurus Wagler Micrurus Wagler  Micrurus circinalis (Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril) Common Coral Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—MCZ ( specimens) (Garman ); BMNH var. A, d, e, f, g, h (Boulenger ); SMF  d, f (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux );

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AMNH –, –, –, MCZ  (Amaral a); MBUCV VI. (Roze ); MMHN , SMF , NMBE , , , MCZ , a, AMNH , RVIM , , , , FMNH –, – , –, –, CM  (Schmidt ); FMNH , –, –, –, , ,  (Murphy ). Note: All specimens in the RVIM are now possibly lost. : This is a fairly small snake ( mm males,  mm females, Schmidt ), banded with red, black, and white, the single black bands outlined in white and separated by broad red bands. The red and white scales are tipped with black. The tail consists of alternate black and white bands. There is little narrowing of the neck, and the top of the head is black. There are – black bands in males and – in females. The bands go completely around the body and across the ventrals. : Trinidad; Gaspar Grande Island (Boos b), adjacent Venezuela.  : Common coral snake, small coral snake, corail, male coral, serpent corail female, small coral.  : A mainly nocturnal, burrowing, terrestrial snake, the common coral feeds on other small snakes and snakelike lizards that share its habitat. Mole and Urich (b) noted that it ate Geophis lineatus (= Atractus trilineatus), and a specimen from Gaspar Grande Island regurgitated a small legless lizard, Amphisbaena fuliginosa (Boos b). It has been noted (Mole b; Field Naturalists’ Club a) that this snake is “fond of water” and there has been speculation that perhaps fish are also eaten. Quesnel () noted that Richard ffrench had written to him (no date given) that it was preyed upon by the marine toad, Bufo marinus. Mating has been recorded in January, eggs being laid in July (Mole ). Roosevelt () described the common coral snake as sluggish in the daytime but active at night and reported that A. B. Carr, who was familiar with this species, said its venom was more potent than that of the “jararaca” (Bothrops atrox). Mole (b) surmised that the venom was not as dangerous as that of its larger cousin Micrurus lemniscatus diutius. A specimen in its death throes, cut in half by a bulldozer blade on La Gloria Estate in central Trinidad, was made to bite into the lightly haired hind leg of a mouse also unearthed by the clearing of the old cocoa estate for sugarcane replanting. The mouse died in approximately four minutes. : Like the following species, M. circinalis has been listed for Trinidad under several taxa. Garman () listed three specimens from Trinidad in the Museum of Comparative Zoology as Elaps riisii—(used by Mole in this incorrect form; Field Naturalists’ Club f)—although Court (in de Verteuil ) had listed the coral snake from Trinidad as Elaps corallinus, possibly using the identification from Wied-Neuwied (a, b). Thus specimens in European mu-

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seums were identified as one species, Elaps corallinus, and those in North American museums were described as another species, Elaps riisei. Many authors (Eggers ; Field Naturalists’ Club a, a; Boulenger ; Mole b, a, b, ; Mole and Urich a, b, c, ; Sclater ; Roux ; Amaral a, a; Ditmars ) used these taxa, sometimes in varying combinations—Micrurus (Elaps) corallinus (Mole ), M. corallinus riesei (sic) (Amaral a, a)—though in these papers Amaral had substituted Micrurus for Elaps. However, Beebe () used M. psyches for specimens from the Guianas and again in  used it for specimens from the areas around Kartabo in British Guiana and Caripito in Venezuela. In  he used M. circinalis for the specimens he recorded from the Arima Valley in Trinidad; with access to this paper and with knowledge of the changes in the taxonomy that were taking place, M. circinalis slowly replaced the earlier E. riisei and E. corallinus. In , Roze, reassessing the taxon, stated that the form now found in Trinidad and parts of Venezuela was M. psyches circinalis, which assessment was followed for a time (Peters and Orejas-Miranda ; Boos a, , a, b, a; Dinardo ; Emsley ; Greenhall ; Maclean et al. , Murphy ; Campbell and Lamar ; Tikasingh ). However, recently, Roze () has made a case for the return to full specific status of Micrurus circinalis. : The two species of coral snake tend to become blurred together in many people’s minds because of the difficulty of remembering the sequence in which the ringed pattern is seen. Most of the beliefs given for the larger species, Micrurus lemniscatus diutius, are possibly applicable to the smaller M. circinalis, especially the matter of mistaking one for a “dropped necklace.” In the early s, Garth Underwood, then professor of zoology at the University of the West Indies, kept a small section of the skin of the smaller species, cleverly cut so that the black band, bordered with white, ran diagonally across an oblong, the balance of which was red—a perfect tiny herpetological replica of the flag of the only very recently independent nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It was his feeling that in the nationalistic fervor to assign national status to birds, flowers, anthems, and calypsos, a national snake should also be chosen. What could be more suitable than the small coral, Micrurus circinalis? It is doubtful, however, that such a suggestion would have been considered. Postage stamps depicting snakes were not issued until , and perhaps it was this coincidental resemblance to the flag that caused the omission of this species from the stamp series. An explanation of the symbolism in the choice of red, white, and black for the national flag is given in Facts on Trinidad and Tobago (ca. ). Red represents vitality, warmth, energy, courage, and friendliness. White represents the

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surrounding sea, purity, and equality. Black represents dedication, unity, and wealth. But perhaps some genetic memory was operating in the minds of the flag’s designers, for it is passing strange that the Fon people of Africa have a version of their creation legend offering another perspective on these colors: “The snake erected four pillars at each of the cardinal points to uphold the heavens, and it twisted itself around the pillars to keep them upright. The three primary colours of black, white and red are the clothes which the snake puts on at night, day and twilight, and these colours are twined round the heavenly pillars” (Parrinder , quoted in Wieck :). Micrurus lemniscatus diutius Burger  Large coral Snake Plate  : TRINIDAD—MCZ (Garman ); BMNH (a), (b) (Boulenger ); SMF d (Boettger ); NMW (Werner ); NMBE (Roux ); FMNH , MCZ , NMBE , ZSM / (Burger ); MNHN , , AMNH , , , , ANSP , SMF d, NMBE , , , MCZ , FMNH , , , ,  (Schmidt ); RVIM , , , , , –; FMNH , , ,  (Murphy ). Note: All specimens in the RVIM are now possibly lost. : This is a brightly banded snake, red, black, and white or dirty yellow. The black bands occur in threes, or triads, the middle black band in each group being almost twice as wide as the outer two; the groups or triads number from nine to  on the body, with one or two on the tail. Though claims of over five feet have been made (Wistrel ), the largest specimen is . cm (Schmidt ). There is little narrowing of the neck behind the head. The bands go completely around the body and across the ventrals. There is dense black spotting on the white rings, less on red rings. : Trinidad; eastern Venezuela except Orinoco delta (Roze ); Guyana; Suriname; French Guiana; Brazil (Campbell and Lamar ).  : Large coral snake, coral snake, corail, coral snake (female), serpent corail, female coral. coreuil (Douglas-Cameron ).  : A terrestrial, nocturnal, and partially burrowing and aquatic species, the large coral snake has a distinctive banded pattern of bright red, black, and white that easily identifies it as one of the four venomous snake species in Trinidad. Coral snakes have been listed erroneously as occurring on Tobago (Ditmars )—this was corrected by Mertens ()—as well as being listed erroneously from St. Lucia, Martinique, and St. Vincent. The St. Vincent record has its genesis in one specimen being listed by Boulenger (). This is an egglaying species. This coral snake feeds on other snakes, including its own young (Wehekind ). Frogs and lizards offered to a captive individual were refused, but a snake,

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Liophis melanotus, was consumed (Mole and Urich b). The species has been noted to be active and aggressive (Roosevelt ; Beebe ) and was decidedly so when uncovered at night beneath a termite’s nest (Welch ). Mole (a) noted that it ate one of the small burrowing snakes, Geophis lineatus (= Atractus trilineatus), and he experimented (b) with feeding a large specimen, which ate specimens of Liophis melanotus and Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti. He also reported secondhand records from Urich and Ditmars of Bachia and other skinklike lizards being eaten. Sazima and Abe () found that in Brazil, this species fed on the gymnotiform fish Gymnotus sp. and A[mphisbaena] dubia, and that individuals fell prey to the laughing falcon, Herpetotheres cachinnans. Based on records of Brazilian specimens of this same species (Sazima and Abe ), Micrurus lemniscatus in Trinidad probably also takes any other snake of convenient size as well as the freshwater eel, Synbranchus marmoratus. Schmidt () noted that the stomach contents of two specimens from Trinidad, FMNH  and NMBE , included Synbranchus, confirming this speculation. This larger of the two coral snakes was often believed to be the female (Mole a), the smaller one, Micrurus circinalis, being believed to be the male; and sometimes the larger has in error been considered the male (Boos ). Micrurus lemniscatus diutius, the large coral snake, was featured on a three-dollar postage stamp issued on September , . The neurotoxic venom of this large coral snake is extremely potent; this was acknowledged from the earliest times in Trinidad. Halliday (:) described one snake, “very beautiful, called the coral snake, because the scales form beautiful circles of bright scarlet alternately with black,” and Day (:) recounts that “a coral snake, three feet long, was brought to the door, writhing in the agonies of death. The bite of this reptile is very deadly . . . the fangs were quite apparent and it was considered a large specimen. Its colour was alternate bands of bright red (whence its name) and black and white.” This snake’s well-deserved reputation as venomous must have been widely known after an account of snakebite deaths appeared in the Port of Spain Gazette (). The report says that “two Africans from the Moco Nation,” William Hewitson and Andre Sam, laborers on Santa Margarita Estate in St. Joseph, were “playing with a coral snake” when they were both bitten. This was about : p.m. on that fateful day, May , . Hewitson died the same day at about : p.m., Sam about half an hour later. The report goes on to state that an inquest was held the next day by J. A. Guiseppi, Esq. This double death from a single snake was again reported by de Verteuil (), this time more fully, giving details as to how the two men were bitten—one on the lip, the other on the tongue—and the times of the deaths are given as : and : p.m. of the same day. De Verteuil refers to the estate as “La Margarite.” Wilkins () adds to the supposed powers of her fictional “Dagoman” named

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Fanty by having him keep as an “Obiah” pet “a coral snake, the most venomous reptile in the Colonies,” a tale repeated by Douglas-Cameron (), though Koko and Bobo, the snake familiars of his Papa Jacob, are not specified to be corals. This death-by-coral-snakebite story was kept alive to the end of the century by the reissuing of a second edition of L. A. A. de Verteuil’s book in  and by Gamble (). Mole (b) retold it, adding that the offending snake, called then Elaps marcgravii, was . feet in length and that it was part of the Court collection (now missing) in the Royal Victoria Institute; this length exceeds by  inches that of a specimen I collected, dead, in a cocoa estate south of Palmiste Estate in . Snake exhibiting and snake dancing were popular parts of the Carnival celebrations. In the Port of Spain Gazette of February , , under the heading “A Snake Charmer,” the story was told: “Yesterday two men attracted considerable attention carrying a large bag containing snakes which at intervals on the way, they exhibited. At Queen Street one of the men was bitten by one of the pests, but showed no sign of pain whatever.” The unfortunate “pests” were more than likely one of the species of boa—nonvenomous, and with their rows of teeth cut or ripped out, allowing their handlers to be bitten with impunity and “no sign of pain.” Cross () tells of a snake man named Johan whose specialty was dancing a “coral-bongo” on the Saturday preceding Carnival in the early part of the twentieth century. Whether Cross is relating an actual happening or dramatizing some arcane snake-dance ritual, which may or may not have been part of the preCarnival entertainment of the time, is unclear. Johan, putting the snake into his mouth—similar to what the two misguided laborers must have tried back in —was bitten, and according to the story he died within the hour, forgoing what was considered a life-saving operation of tongue excision. Earlier, in an interview with Tony Raul (), Cross stated that “in South Trinidad there have been occasional shows in which the exhibitioner dances with a coral snake in his mouth” and that “in some instances death has resulted” (p. ). This placing of snakes, especially venomous snakes, into the mouth seems to be a long-standing tradition among circus carnival showmen. Two bites by rattlesnakes, one on the chin and one under the tongue, were reported when captured rattlesnakes were being handled by circus or carnival showmen in the United States (Hutchinson ). In , the Express printed a photograph of a coral snake, reported to be  inches long, which was responsible for the death of Soobradia Sooklal of Upper Carapichaima, after she was bitten on the toe while reaping “dasheen bush,” Colocasia esculenta. Swampy ground, in which dasheen grows most favorably, also is the natural habitat of the eels and snakes on which Micrurus lemniscatus feeds; it will likely bite if stepped on by bare, unwary feet. This bite on the toe, to which

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the snake was still clinging when it was reportedly killed by the victim’s husband, should help dispel the belief perpetuated by writers (e.g., Hart ; Anderson ) who comment on the inability of coral snakes to bite into large or firm areas of the human body. The readiness to bite in this case may help to counter the other belief that a coral snake can be mistaken for something besides a deadly snake—a necklace, or string of beads—which is handled with impunity until it is discovered that the harmless-looking “necklace” is in fact a venomous coral snake. In Trinidad, de Verteuil () probably generated this second belief, quoting Prince Maximilian Wied-Neuwied (a or b, not seen), who says of the coral snake “that it can be taken and handled, without any danger; children very often playing with this viper, encircling it round the neck.” De Verteuil claims that he had himself “more than once carried about corals, not suspecting they were venomous” (p. ). He goes on to say that the “apparent innoccuity of the coral snakes” is due to the shape of the head and mouth, there being little indication of a narrowing or “distinct neck”; “nor can it, on account of its anatomical organization, open its jaws sufficiently to seize and bite any bulky body.” Attempting to ascertain exactly where on the human body the snake that lacked sufficient “anatomical organization” could, in fact, find purchase or facility to bite, Mole (b) came up with the perfect solution in a story told to him by Mr. [A. B.] Carr. Carrying a heavy load of cocoa, as Carr tells it, a barefooted man in Brasso Caparo stepped into a drain, where he trod on a coral snake, which promptly bit him on the thin skin between his toes. He died the following morning. Mole goes on to relate the readiness to bite, at night, of a -inch-long coral snake he attempted to capture while it was crossing the road in Port of Spain near the Trinity Cathedral. In contrast to what he had found at night, he found that during the day the species “is sluggish and loth to bite, and usually allowed itself to be handled to almost any extent.” He further states that “the shortness of the fangs and the small size of the mouth prevent these snakes from biting anything large” (p. ). There are two photographs in Surinaamse Slangeninkleur (Moonen et al. ) of a small specimen of Micrurus lemniscatus coiled casually around the fingers of the author’s bare hand, a practice not to be encouraged, night or day. The misconception that this or any coral snake can bite humans only between the toes or fingers is repeated time and time again. It is, however, possible that a large individual of this species, which does grow to almost  feet (. m) could bite into almost any soft area of the human body, as the jaws can open to perhaps  degrees for swallowing prey, which would bring into play the short fangs located near the front of the upper jaw. Although he is relating a supposedly true story, and albeit about the smaller species of coral snake found in Trinidad, Micrurus circinalis, Cross () outdoes

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himself by telling how a woman picks up a coral snake while she is walking around the “Grand Savannah” and pops it into her handbag, deciding the snake is a “beautiful necklace” that must “have dropped from someone.” She is later bitten while searching her bag for the “necklace,” and we are left with the cliffhanger of the snake hanging onto her finger. Cross does not tell us if the woman died, but we are left to surmise so. The harmless amphisbaenid Amphisbaena fuliginosa is quite often mistaken for a coral snake despite its lack of any red bands (Boos ), to the extent of it being described as a “black and white coral” (Boos ). It also inspires some questionable poetry: “The serpent, black and white the most venomous of all snakes / The coral, and believe me this creature is so small” Harper (ca. ). I have not made an exhaustive search for statistics to illustrate the quantity or severity of coral snake bites, but the following recent incidents should be sufficient to illustrate that bites from the large coral snake, Micrurus lemniscatus diutius (for in most cases I had to conclude that this was species involved), can be deadly. In  the Trinidad Guardian () reported that seven-year-old Chandra Lachan was bitten on the foot by a snake. After becoming violently ill, she died in hospital two days later. Though it may well have been a coral snake that bit the child, the snake was not caught, killed, or identified; in that she had stepped onto a grass verge, her symptoms before death could also point to a sting or envenomation by the commonest of Trinidad’s scorpions, Tityus trinitatis. As already related, the Express reported in  that a pictured coral snake  inches long was responsible for the death of Soobradia Sooklal. In the Express editions of April  and ,  (b, c), is a story concerning Vidiawatee Singh,  years old, who was still paralyzed a year after she had been bitten on her right hand while working in a “lagoon” uprooting rice seedlings. I have been unable to discover the fate of this girl and whether the prayers that were to be offered to cure her were effective. The following two cases I researched personally during the s. Twentysix-year-old Germaine Castenado, of Ramoutar Extension in Sangre Grande, was bitten on her right big toe on July  at : a.m. in the predawn darkness, six days after she had had a baby. Admitted to hospital with her entire leg swollen, she began to have blurred vision; her tongue grew heavy, her eyes red. She salivated constantly, with blood oozing from her nose. She died at : a.m. on July . It was reported that the coral snake that bit her was  inches long. Likewise, a man identified only as Mohammed, of the accounts department of the Ministry of Works and of Edward Street, Princes Town, in south Trinidad, was bitten by a coral snake on July  and later died at the San Fernando General Hospital. Thus the toxicity of this snake’s bite is well reported in relation to humans. Mole and Urich (b), experimenting with a rat, found that after being bitten on the leg, the rat died in  minutes. The venom of this species is probably as

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toxic to other snakes, as was discovered (Abalos and Náder ) of the subspecies frontalis (see Clelia account). : I have deliberately allowed some obvious folklore beliefs to remain in the foregoing section on Natural History, for the boundaries where one stops and the other begins tend to be slightly blurred—for all snakes but especially for the venomous ones that have the potential to kill people and seem to exert the power of life and death over their victims. The most enduring myth is that these colorful banded snakes are mistaken for necklaces and, because of their beauty, fascinate children and adults into picking them up, which sometimes results in death. That some short-sighted or misguided souls have handled true coral snakes—as opposed to harmless and nonvenomous mimics that the unaware may mistake for a species of Micrurus— and have escaped unscathed may be attributable to the often observed docility of some coral snakes during the daytime. However, these snakes being nocturnal in habit, bites at night are a distinct possibility, and an individual stepped on or harassed is almost guaranteed to attempt to bite. Snake “charmers” can get away with the handling of snakes by fooling their audience into thinking that the handler is possessed of some special protective power or charm, when the snake is in fact not venomous anyway; most audiences need little convincing that all snakes are deadly. Such showmen can also handle venomous snakes that have been secretly “doctored” by removal of the fangs or sewing up of the mouth (Carr ), or that have been rendered torpid by being kept at cool temperatures or by sickness, when the snake is too ill to be aggressive and bite. However, the unfortunate Hewitson and Sam, and the (perhaps fictional) snake man Johan, paid the price of fooling around with Micrurus lemniscatus diutius one time too many. Snake dancers and handlers have been a regular part of many a circus and sideshow around the world. During Trinidad and Tobago’s pre-Lenten Carnival, in past years, snake handlers were often seen on the streets of the major towns with large boas, especially tree boas, wrapped around their necks, the handlers extorting money from terrified passersby. A report in the Trinidad Mirror of  of “snake charmers” joining the Carnival revels gives an indication of the long history of this practice. These snakes, too, had often had their teeth clipped off with scissors, as I surmised was the case with the story already given from the Port of Spain Gazette, or had had the lips sewn shut. Every so often snake handlers and snake displays can still be seen in the main streets of the cities of Trinidad; recently photographs have been published of men displaying snakes in San Fernando (Trinidad Sunday Guardian ) and Port of Spain (Express ). One snake-dance show I attended in British Guiana in  had the dancer handling with impunity an anaconda, a species well known for its bad temper. I discovered that the simple expedient of taping the snake’s mouth shut with transparent tape had been used.

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Taking the extreme risk of placing the snakes into the mouth seems to be a traditional magical ritual or rite of passage, which has been retained in some areas of Africa and which persists where descendants of Africans have kept traditions alive. In the Sunday Punch for August , , is a report about “secret societies” in Africa that allegedly train snakes for murder. The accompanying photograph depicts an “African tribesman” with “a snake in his mouth.” In Sorcerer’s Village, David Hassoldt () describes a snake dance he witnessed, in which one of the sorcerers in a remote village in Ivory Coast, West Africa, danced with a large black cobra, ultimately placing the head of the presumably undoctored and fully venomous snake into his mouth. There are four photographs of this dance and its finale, showing the flattened head of the snake firmly held between the compressed lips of the sorcerer. A report in another Trinidadian newspaper (“Snake in His Pants” ca. ) about a visiting dance troupe from Suriname described a performance in the Jubilee Cinema in Chaguanas, where the “snake-dancer” was said to kiss the snakes and place the “snake’s head” in his mouth, afterward letting the snake go down into his trousers, which acts had the audience spellbound. Hambly (:) relates earlier reports of snakes alleged to be poisonous being handled and partially swallowed during exhibitions by dervishes in northern Africa, including Morocco. Morris and Morris () related that Rifaite and Sadite dervishes ate live snakes as an act of religious merit up to the end of the nineteenth century, when such practices were condemned by the Egyptian authorities. In Men and Snakes (), the Morrises include photographs of a female cabaret artist and an Indian fakir threading snakes through their nostrils and out of their mouths. Ovais Subhani () tells how “the smiling, dark haired Pakistani beauty selects two of the scaly reptiles and pops their heads in her mouth,” this being part of her nightly snake show, during which she allows herself to be bitten and then she sucks out the poison. Besides being able to take life, and thus control life (like Wilkins’s Dagoman), there is some belief that snakes’ venom can also restore health, if not life. Capitalized on by “seermen” or obeah men and women, the venom is sought as an ingredient in last-ditch remedies. One mother came to me to request a living coral snake, or its venom, or information as to how she could get some. Closer questioning revealed that she needed the venom to form part of a special prescription to cure cancer of the eyes of her daughter, who was rapidly going blind in hospital, where she was warded as a prelude to her foreseen death. I was not able to get all this information directly from the mother; some came from the reptile keeper of the Emperor Valley Zoo, who had also been approached and told me the reasons for this desperate and fantastic request. Upon being advised that what she sought was surely going to be greatly detrimental to her daughter, let alone able to effect a cure, the mother became extremely angry, accused me of

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denying the daughter her last chance, and stormed off. She also denied any association of her request with obeah or “bush medicine” or “bush doctors.” : Though the presence of “coral snakes” was recorded from Trinidad in some of the earliest chronicles (St. Laurent ; Halliday ; Joseph b; Port of Spain Gazette ; Day ; Wilkins ; de Verteuil ), it was only in  that Gunther identified a specimen in the British Museum, received from Trinidad via the Guilding Museum, as Elaps lemniscatus. Though Court (in de Verteuil ) had listed one species of Elaps for Trinidad, it was the smaller species, then known as Elaps corallinus. Samuel Garman (), listing specimens of reptiles in the Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, noted one specimen of Elaps lemniscatus from Trinidad with  groups of black bands. He counted  ventrals and  pairs of subcaudals. In , Boulenger, now having two specimens from Trinidad in the British Museum collection, reidentified the first, Gunther’s  E. lemniscatus, as E. marcgravii, and also identified the second specimen, collected by a Herr A. H. Riise, as this taxon, named for George Marcgrave, who collected specimens in northeastern Brazil in the seventeenth century. The taxon was supposed to have six to  sets of black triads of annuli and, on Trinidad, – ventrals and – subcaudals. In  Werner, cataloguing specimens in the Natürhistorisches Museum in Austria (NMW), listed one specimen of E. marcgravii as new for Trinidad, having been collected there by Herr Prof. Otto Burger between  and . This specimen had  ventrals,  pairs of subcaudals, and  triads of black rings. Thus it was that specimens from Trinidad sent to European museums were identified as Elaps marcgravii and those sent to the United States as E. lemniscatus. Mole (, a, b) and Roux () list E. marcgravii from Trinidad. Mole was thoroughly confused by the time he wrote his  “The Snakes of Trinidad,” and understandably so. From the available literature it would have seemed that there were two species of the larger kind of Elaps (or Micrurus) in Trinidad— marcgravii and lemniscatus—and so, playing it safe, Mole listed both, using the characteristics in the British Museum’s  Catalogue for the former and Amaral’s  characteristics of the ones in the USNM for the latter, all this based on information he received between his first “The Trinidad Snakes” (b) and the expanded  version in the Trinidad Gazette newspaper. In this later work, Mole noted that Beebe (), in his work on the higher vertebrates of British Guiana (Guyana), had opted to use Wagler’s  genus, Micrurus, for M. lemniscatus, and that Amaral () had listed the new genus Micrurus for  specimens of lemniscatus for Trinidad in the U.S. National Museum collection. It took Leslie Burger, in , to describe the specimens occurring in Trinidad,

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some parts of Venezuela, and British Guiana (Guyana) as a separate subspecies, diutius—distinguished by having the white and red rings spotted with black and by having fewer ventrals than  in males and  in females—the type locality being Tunapuna in Trinidad for specimen  in the Field Museum of Natural History. In , Amaral (b) had noted that the species M. ibiboboca, which he had decided was the same as the old marcgravii, was synonymous with M. lemniscatus; thus M. marcgravii disappeared from use in Trinidad. Both Peters and OrejasMiranda (), and Campbell and Lamar () retain ibiboboca as a good, full species, with M. marcgravii as a synonym, for snakes found in eastern Brazil. It seems that Trinidad’s population of M. lemniscatus diutius is similar in ventral counts to M. marcgravii (now M. ibiboboca); it was for this reason that it was misidentified for so long as this taxon. Schmidt (), examining all the available specimens from museums on both sides of the Atlantic, found that the Europeanheld specimens that had been identified as E. marcgravii (= Micrurus) were in fact the same as those in the United States named E. lemniscatus; taking into consideration Burger’s  description, Schmidt standardized the form found in Trinidad as Micrurus lemniscatus diutius.

Family: Viperidae—Pit Vipers (Mapepires) Viperidae Boie 1827 In the Americas, the Viperidae, the asps and vipers, are represented by the subfamily Crotalinae, the pit vipers, so called because they have a heat-sensitive pit or depression on each side of the head, located between the eye and the nostril. In shape and body structure they resemble the Colubridae, the family being mainly defined by the structure of the specialized, movable maxillary bones and the teeth. These bones, on each side of the front of the upper jaw, bear the enlarged hollow or grooved fangs that conduct venom into the wound of the prey when the snakes bites. The venom of this family is primarily hemolytic or coagulant; that is, affecting the blood and vascular system.

Fig. 41. Typical head scalation of family Viperidae. Note heat pit anterior to eye. (After Chippaux 1986)

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The family is considered to be highly evolved due to its having specially organized equipment for the poisoning of large prey. The body is usually thick in proportion to length, and some species have a broad head separated from the body by a distinct neck. In Trinidad the Crotalinae are represented by two species, Bothrops atrox, and the larger Lachesis muta muta, longest in family Viperidae. There are no pit vipers on Tobago. Genus: Bothrops Wagler Bothrops Wagler  Bothrops atrox (Garman ) Mapepire Balsain, Fer-de-lance Plates ,  : TRINIDAD—SMF  f (Boettger ). BMNH Register (); NMBE (Roux ); SMF  (Brongersma ); (Trinidad Regional Virus Laboratory ); FMNH , USNM , , –, , ,  (Murphy ). : Campbell and Lamar () have deduced that the species of Bothrops found on Trinidad and in nearby Venezuela should now be called B. asper and not B. atrox, as it has been known for many years. They claim that Bothrops atrox is found south of the Orinoco River and throughout Amazonian South America (see distribution maps in Campbell and Lamar), but B. asper differs from it in minor color and dorsal pattern variations as well as a greater variation in ventral scales (– in asper vs. – in atrox). There are still authorities who question this separation, especially Wolfgang Wüster, lecturer at the School of Biological Studies, University of Wales, Bangor (pers. comm. ), who is of the opinion that “there are no particularly compelling reasons to use B. asper for the Trinidadian populations” and that the “morphological evidence is pretty unambiguous” that the species in Trinidad is B. atrox. Murphy (:), following Campbell and Lamar () in using B. asper, expressed the view that the matter required further study. Until this thorny taxonomical puzzle is finally settled, perhaps by future DNA studies, for the sake of clarity I retain the traditional and long-standing name for the Trinidadian mapepire balsain as B. atrox. : This is a fairly large (. m), mainly terrestrial snake with a dorsal pattern of dark triangles outlined in dirty yellow or white, the apexes either meeting or alternating at the dorsal ridge. The ground color may be tan, dark brown, gray, moss green, or yellowish red. The belly may be yellow, cream, or whitish gray, with dark mottling that increases toward the tail. The finely keeled scales give the snake a velvety appearance. In the young, the tail is bright yellow, orange, or pale dirty white. The head is broad and distinct from the neck, coming to a sharp point at the nasal area. There is a dark stripe from the eye, running posteriorly to the corner of the mouth; the stripe separates the pale side of

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the head and the upper lips. There is a distinct “pit” between the eye and the nostril. The pupil of the eye is elliptical. : Trinidad, northern coastal Venezuela, western Colombia, eastern Caribbean Mexico, northern Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama (Campbell and Lamar ).  : Mapepire balsain, fer-de-lance (Lacépède , in Lazell ), barba amarilla (Minton et al. ); mapapero (Joseph ), mapepire valsain (Fr. “waltzing,” Mole and Urich b), mapepire barcin, balsin, valsin (Mole a; Aitken et al. ), mapepire balsayn (Mole ), McPipir (Verbum Sap ), mapepiré (Ditmars ), true mapepire (Greenhall , ), mapapi (Cook ), mapepire balsam (Primus ), mappipire (Trinidad and Tobago Mirror ); true cascabel (Kingsley ); cascabel = Trigonocephalus tararaca (Collens , Court , ) = T. jararaca (Skutch ), trigonocephalus (Mole c); ferdelance (Beebe ), basin snake (Lindblad ), pit viper (Dinardo ), rabo frito (juvenile) (Mole a). With many spelling variants, mapepire (pronounced “ma-pa-pee” or “ma-pipee)” in Trinidad has come to mean almost any kind of snake except the coral snakes, and it is usually qualified by another descriptive name—often patois (French Creole)—used to distinguish the species or variety. But where did the many local names given to Bothrops atrox come from? Mole (b) reports being told by de Verteuil that the latter thought mapepire was a Carib or Gallibi word; that barcin was “derived from the Guarahaun [Warahoon]” language, meaning “faint or blurred stripes”; and that the sometimes used valsin meant “dancing.” Winer and Boos (), however, commented that barcin or barsain is a variant of balsain, itself a variant of valsain, a French Creole word, from French valsant, “waltzing,” referring to the typical repeated defensive coiling and circling of a ruffled and angry viper. In Breton’s (:) Carib-French dictionary is the word mátabi, described as “presse a magnoc des Sauvages” (a squeezer for the manioc or cassava of the savages). Later, Taylor () describes a “matapee,” which is a Dominica Island Carib word for the intricately woven cassava squeezer, also called in Dominica French Creole coulev (from the French couleuvre, “snake”); the pattern formed by the plaited and diagonally woven intertwined elements of this long cylindrical object does indeed look like the scale arrangement on the body of a snake. It is not difficult to see how mátabi became matapee and then mapapee, becoming a common name for snakes with distinctive scalation, such as Bothrops and Lachesis.  : Mainly terrestrial, often preferring wet habitats or swampy ground, these snakes do sometimes perch in bushes and on low trees up to approximately  m (Mole and Urich b). As Roosevelt () noted, they are fairly common in the forests of Trinidad’s mountains and foothills, wherever there

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is suitable habitat and their food can be found. Contrary to reports of their rarity by Critchell () and Cherrington (, misquoting snake man Allen Rodriguez), this remains the case. They are often found under low bushes and ferns on the banks of rivers and streams, or basking in sun-pierced areas and trails in the forest. Their cryptic coloration makes them difficult to detect in the multicolored dappled shade in the jungle, and many a bite on the leg of the unwary has resulted from people walking too close to or stepping upon an unmoving and undetected mapepire balsain. Their nervousness and willingness to strike and bite fiercely, even leaping off the ground with the force of their lunge, was also recorded by Roosevelt () and by Murphy (). Luckily for hikers, a warning is sometimes given: the tail of an alerted mapepire is vibrated quite violently against the dry leaves, a distinctive sound to an experienced ear (Boos a, b). Lange () recorded that after he had been bitten he could hear the “loud buzzing” sound made by this vibrating of the tail. The snake’s defensive coiling and re-coiling—in a regular disklike shape locally referred to as a “kata” because of its resemblance to the coiled grass or cloth pad used to cushion loads carried on the head (Winer and Boos )—allows a sharp eye to discern the broken dazzle-pattern on the jungle floor. My first experience of capturing a large Bothrops atrox was instructive as to how well their disruptive dazzle-pattern serves to hide these snakes. I failed to see one pointed out to me by the estate worker who had discovered it under a low-hanging bush until he poked it with a long stick, and it moved. Another, coiled among the roots on bare earth under a nutmeg tree in the Grande Riviere area in northeast Trinidad, remained undetected by at least six of us as we walked about in the area, collecting fallen nutmeg seeds. Though all of us must have passed within biting distance of the snake, and some may even have stepped over it, no one was bitten. The snake was finally detected by our guide, and I collected the specimen. Climbing around a muddy cliff face up in the Marianne River, I stepped on a juvenile Bothrops atrox, killing it, but this was only detected by the person following me. Kennedy () suggested that there is a symbiotic sharing of holes dug by the tatu—the armadillo Dasypus novemcinctus—with Bothrops, the snake defending the hole it cannot dig and the tatu digging the hole it cannot defend. This habit of sharing the holes of the tatu and the lappe (or paca, Dasyprocta aguti) has been known for a long time (Hart , from de Suze ). Bothrops are known to feed on small mammals, rodents, and birds, and the eating of crayfish—unusual as it may appear—was reported by Wehekind (). Frogs, mice, spiny rats, Ameiva lizards, and small snakes were also reported as prey (Beebe ). A  cm centipede, Scolopendra angulata, was eaten by an  cm Bothrops atrox (Parker , in Medem ); Dixon and Soini () also

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Fig. 42. Juvenile Bothrops atrox (mapepire balsain) killed while eating a common coral snake, Micrurus circinalis. (Photograph by A. Rodriguez)

found that the young ate small centipedes (Scolopendra). Rodriguez () recorded the snake Ninia atrata as prey, and Oliver () reports that even the mongoose, introduced to kill snakes, can be easily accommodated by this large, highly efficient killer (see fig. , B. atrox eating a coral snake, Micrurus circinalis). Young in captivity take pink baby mice within days of their birth and also readily eat Mannophryne trinitatis frogs. The yellow tip of the tail in the young snakes is wriggled as a lure to attract prey within striking distance (Mole ). These snakes are extremely aggressive and bite readily if any attempt is made to annoy or capture them. Handling them is always a risky proposition, even when the head is pinned down and secured. Bites at the pinning instrument are common, the fangs often being broken and lost in the process. This does not incapacitate the snake, as fangs are regularly replaced when the broken or old ones fall out or are lost while feeding. Even when firmly held, the snake twists its body

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into tortuous loops and knots to gain purchase to try to pull its head backward through the gripping fingers, and the fangs can be protruded sideways out of the mouth to snag any nearby part of the hand. The snake may gape widely, with fangs erected and dripping yellowish venom; each fang can be rotated independently on the underlying maxillary bone. Accompanying the leaps off the ground (described by Murphy ), venom is sometimes ejected from the mouth, Mole and Urich (b) and Mole (b) reporting a distance of  feet. One specimen struck at me from its cage, and the venom splashed the wall at least . m from the end of its strike. Mole also reported that B. atrox tended to bite more readily than Lachesis muta muta. Beebe () noted the following breeding data: May  and , half-developed “eggs”; June , almost full-term “eggs”; September , eight young snakes; October ,  large embryos. Bothrops is ovoviviparous, retaining the clear membranous “eggs” with the developing young inside the body of the female until simultaneous “laying” and “birth.” The transparent sacs are ejected and within minutes the little snakes break free, fully venomed miniatures of their parents except for having bright yellow, orange, or dirty-white tail tips. The figures Beebe gives for the number of young are conservative, to say the least. These snakes are prolific. Mole () reported , – (b), and – (a); Rodriguez () records ; Ditmars () found litters of , , and , and later () a birth of . Another report (Field Naturalists’ Club d) told of

Fig. 43. Bothrops atrox (mapepire balsain) juveniles. As many as fifty or more young may be born in a single litter.

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a captive female giving birth after being bitten by a cage mate; among the otherwise lively litter there were  dead ones, but the survivors, none the worse for their mother’s ordeal, thrived and were soon eating lizards and frogs. Young and perhaps even adults are preyed upon by other snakes—Clelia and Pseudoboa (Mole b, )—but seldom, if ever, by the mongoose. Urich () found that the mongoose was not generally a forest dweller, as was Bothrops, nor was the snake found in the areas preferred by the mongooses (Nellis and Everard ). Everard () found the pentastomid parasite Porocephalus clavatus and Riley and Self () found Kiricephalus gabonensis in specimens of Bothrops atrox from Trinidad. Sprent () speculated that this species may be the intermediate host in Trinidad for the rare human parasite Logochilascaris minor. Bites: Not surprisingly, given that this snake is both aggressive and fairly common, snakebites from Bothrops atrox are by far the most common in Trinidad. However, unless a bite leads to the death of the victim, it is seldom reported in the newspapers. Without doubt the venom of Bothrops, a hemotoxin, is extremely virulent; when a person is bitten, there is a great deal of pain, swelling, and capillary bleeding, with the added symptoms of disorientation, double vision, and vomiting. Unless the correct procedures can be applied in a hospital in a timely manner, death may occur. The potency of the venom is well illustrated in a report (Ditmars , March ) of a man in Honduras in Central America being bitten on the leg by a ferde-lance. While he was being “treated” by the resident “snake doctor,” his wife, who had been grating dried coconut, was helping to attend to the victim by washing the site of the bite, which was bleeding severely. These ministrations failed to save the man, who died some hours later, followed by his wife the next day, for she had absorbed enough venom from the blood flowing from her husband, through minor cuts and abrasions on her fingers caused by the coconut grater. In , Noch Lange, hunting in the Madamas River valley on the north coast of Trinidad, stepped over a low log at the side of the river and was bitten on the foot by a snake that had been lying under the overhang of the log (Lange, ). In the account of his ordeal, Lange describes injecting himself with antivenin he had with him. It took a -hour journey, being carried by hammock, boat, and ambulance, before he reached a hospital, where he remained for over a month. After  weeks, necrotic wounds at the site of the bite were still being treated. In the s and s, Clifford Chan, a well-known snake man who lived near the road leading to the Maracas waterfall, collected and kept many snakes, including Bothrops and Lachesis. As a result of his careless and foolhardy practices of free-handling these dangerous snakes (handling without pinning or

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Fig. 44. Clifford Chan, Maracas Valley snake-man, free-handling Bothrops atrox. (Photographer unknown)

confining the head), he was bitten several times, ending up in hospital in critical condition (Alonzo ; Express , a). It is surprising that Chan was not bitten more often, as he was in the habit of posing for newspaper photographers with mapepire balsain snakes free-handled or loosely draped around his neck and shoulders (fig. ), often with his wife and children standing close by. He kept one specimen in his gun box to protect his shotgun from theft (Lewis ; Social Affairs Reporter ; Express a; Evening News ; Sun ; Lopez ; Sunday Punch ). Chan was even hired as a special advisor and snake wrangler for an internationally funded film made in Trinidad—Gold of the Amazon Women (Express ). After several more bites that partially crippled one hand (fig. ), he died of cancer and complications of his kidneys and bladder, probably as a result of the amount of venom his organs had had to process through his body over the years. But bites to people far less careless than Chan have been a fairly regular occurrence, and I have personally investigated some of them. In , David Archer, walking bare-legged along a path from the Paria waterfall, was bitten on the leg. He was hospitalized with a badly swollen leg, and the site of the bite on his shin slowly became necrotic; skin grafts had to be done to correct the gaping

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Fig. 45. Clifford Chan’s hand after Bothrops bite.

Fig. 46. David Archer’s leg after Bothrops atrox bite.

hole (Lopez ; fig. , this volume). Archer was lucky to survive, for he was borderline leukemic and would die of this disease several years later. George Reyes, while gathering up some cut saplings in the Paria forest, was bitten several times on the right forearm and wrist. Despite local remedies and “cures” consisting of the application of a river stone and coconut fiber to the site on the swelling arm, and the drinking of muddy water followed by a draught of pitch oil, when some companions finally carried Reyes to the village of Blanchisseuse, he showed no signs of recovering. He was finally warded in hospital in Port of Spain, where all efforts to save his life proved fruitless.

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In the s Catherine Sorzano, aged , was reputed to be a “seer-woman.” She was the mother of one of the men who, while logging in the Santa Cruz valley, often brought in snakes for the Emperor Valley Zoo, including a large Lachesis muta. Catherine lived alone in a small lean-to shack up in the bush of the foothills of Santa Cruz. This domicile and the surrounding trees and bushes were adorned with sundry fetish obeah objects, such as blue bottles, colored flags, and disjointed and dismembered children’s dolls. Due to failing eyesight, she mistook a meter-long Bothrops for a young boa constrictor. While she was attempting to capture it, it bit her on the back of her right hand. There were three puncture wounds, indicating more than one bite. She was admitted to hospital, where the entire right side of her shriveled and emaciated body swelled to bursting point. Despite all efforts to save her, she died  hours later. Christine Achong, of Paramin Village in the Maraval hills, was bitten while walking barefoot through the bush on December , . She spent a week in hospital and was then sent home. After a large blister developed on her toe, and it burst on Christmas day, she was readmitted to hospital with developing gangrene on January , . Achong was released from hospital when the spread of the gangrene had been arrested. The snake was identified by the victim as a mapepire balsain, Bothrops atrox,  inches long. Ralph Galera, in July , stopped at a small spring on the Maracas Bay road. Attempting to collect a plant for his wife, he was clambering up the hillside when he was bitten on the right forearm near the elbow. He was admitted to hospital and spent several weeks there, with a greatly swollen arm, but was released without further complications. Donavan Taylor, aged , was walking through the bush barefoot on a track above Blue Basin waterfall when he was bitten low on the side of his left foot. He made two incisions of the puncture wounds and put the flaring sulphur of lit matches to it to cauterize the wounds. Bitten at about : a.m., he was admitted to hospital at about : a.m. and soon began to pass blood in his urine. The foot was badly swollen despite his earlier attempts at first aid. He was released some days later. Bratt and Boos () reported on the symptoms and treatment of a small six-year-old boy who was bitten by what was reported to be a large specimen of Bothrops, and who began to vomit blood after he had been admitted to hospital. He was treated successfully and was normal  months afterward. One of the strangest cases of “snake-bite” I ever came across was when I was called to the community hospital in Cocorite to advise doctors about how to administer crotalid antivenin. An electrician had reported that while working on a derelict freezer in his back yard, removing an engine or compressor, he had seen a snake that had struck at him, and he had felt the bite on his thumb. When I examined Charles Nelson’s thumb I could find no punctures and there was no

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pain or swelling, and he admitted that he had only seen “something” that he thought could have been a snake—though a news report the next day (Trinidad Guardian ) said he had seen a large brown snake. I asked Nelson to stand clear of us all and to swing his arm in a swift circle for several strenuous rotations, after which I again examined the “bitten” thumb. In the corner of the nail was a tiny droplet of blood, forced out by the centrifugal motion of his arm. I suggested that he had probably been pricked by a loose wire in the semidarkness of the freezer, and I advised the doctors that antivenin was not necessary. Nelson, of course embarrassed, stuck to his story of the snake, and this was fully reported in the local press, though he recovered without any first aid or use of antivenin. It is difficult to judge the reliability of certain reports in the weekly press in Trinidad, but if the story that follows is true, one has to marvel at the daring ingenuity of the perpetrator. Someone concealed a snake—perhaps a mapepire balsain (though in Trinidad any snake would do)—in a pot as a trap for a cocaine-addicted habitual thief. It was reported (Trinidad and Tobago Mirror ) that the thief was bitten in the chest when he investigated the pot and was later treated in hospital. His eventual fate was not described, but had he died, one has to wonder if the trap setter would have been charged with murder. note: There are no venomous snakes on Tobago. Although Tobagonians have generally been aware of this for a long time (Mole ), the knowledge has not protected the nonvenomous snakes found there in the past (Hammond ) or today; all snakes in Tobago as well as in Trinidad tend to be slaughtered indiscriminately. Yet, in , due to an early mislabeling of specimens from other West Indian islands, notably Grenada and Martinique, several specimens of amphibians and reptiles, including a poisonous snake, were recorded from Tobago. It all started with Frederick A. Ober, who traveled through the West Indies in the latter half of the nineteenth century, collecting specimens of amphibians and reptiles from several islands. It seems that the locality data must have become confused, either by Ober himself or at some point between his sending the specimens to the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., and Cope’s () identification and listing for Tobago. One of the species listed by Cope was Bothrops lanceolatus, a highly venomous snake known from Martinique, where it was called the fer-de-lance. By the time Barbour (b) got around to publishing “Amphibians and Reptiles from Tobago,” the genus was listed as Lachesis. Ditmars (, ) listed the fer-de-lance for Tobago and so did Amaral (), Nicéforo-Maria (), Beebe (), and Alemán (), though they had switched back to using the genus Bothrops. Lazell () realized that something was wrong with the two specimens that were being retained as coming from Tobago. He had a good look at these specimens, USNM  and , and concluded that although Amaral () had placed lanceolatus into synonymy with atrox from Trinidad and South

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America, the two specimens recorded as being from Tobago “agreed in every respect of coloration and pattern, as well as squamation with the Serpent of Martinique, Bothrops lanceolatus,” and Lazell stated that therefore the “Tobago” locality data were “simply in error.” Lazell’s comment notwithstanding, Minton et al. (:) once more show B. atrox as occurring on Tobago; Wilcocks and Manson-Bahr () also list it from Tobago. In , and again in  and , Mertens noted that Cope’s B. lanceolatus was from Martinique and not Tobago. Tuck and Hardy () went to great pains to point out once more the locality labeling errors in Ober’s collection data—and hence in Cope’s identification—not only for Bothrops but for other amphibians and reptiles as well, supposedly collected on Tobago but in fact from other islands (see Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni account). This information was echoed by Emsley () and Lescure (). One would have thought that with this type of listing, the matter would by this time have been finally settled. Yet even in the s, Englemann and Obst () and Santos () still listed Tobago as having poisonous snakes when there are none. : At one time the mapepire balsain from Trinidad, the jararaca from Venezuela, the labaria from Guyana and the fer-de-lance (serpent) from Martinique and St. Lucia were all thought to be closely related, if not the same species. This was explained by the old belief that the snakes had first rafted naturally to Trinidad from the Orinoco delta—thus the species on Trinidad was the same as the one from Venezuela (Slater )—and that the poisonous Bothrops in both Martinique and St. Lucia came in two different and distinct waves, essentially from the same point of origin. The first wave supposedly occurred perhaps centuries ago when warring Caribs from the South American mainland carried baskets and gourds full of these snakes to Martinique, to be used as a secret weapon against the peaceful Arawaks there, who had repulsed the Carib raiders up to that time. According to the story, one Carib war party mistook St. Lucia for Martinique and released their herpetological broadside on that island (Dowling b). The second wave was reputed to have come sometime in the middle or late eighteenth century from Trinidad (Slater ) as shipments of Bothrops (described for Trinidad as fer-de-lance, the “dreaded trigonocephale”) and boa constrictors were taken to Martinique and St. Lucia to scare runaway slaves out of their forest hideouts. Another suggestion (Taylor ) for the presence of the poisonous snakes on Martinique was that they were imported to “extirpate the rats.” If these stories, even as folklore, are to be given any credence, one has to wonder why only Martinique and St. Lucia proved fertile ground for the introduction of Bothrops; other islands surely also had Carib attacks, runaway slaves, and forest hideouts for both people and snakes. As already described, the fact is that Lazell () determined once and for all that the snakes from Martinique, St. Lucia, and Trinidad are three different and distinct species.

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The belief that poisonous snakes get their venom secondhand from frogs is well established in Trinidad, where frog and toad are brought together under the all-embracing name crapaud, but the name is particularly applied to the common marine toad, Bufo marinus. This toad is known for its ability to poison unwary dogs that bite into its skin, lending credibility to the belief. It is not common knowledge among the believers, however, that few snakes in the world will attempt to eat or bite into a Bufo, but that frogs, despite their sometimes toxic skin secretions, are readily eaten (Altig ; Lamar, in Murphy ) How the snakes get their venom from crapauds is explained in two ways, both methods coming from partially observed feeding habits of both the toads or frogs and the snakes. Observant agriculturalists, forest dwellers, and hunters may have come across some hapless snake as it swallowed a still living and struggling frog or toad and interrupted the meal with a quick cutlass chop or blow with a stick. This tableau is interpreted as the transfer of venom from frog to snake as the snake “sucks” the poison from the skin of the crapaud. The second method, which puzzled me for some years, was the belief that the snake went into the mouth of a large crapaud (obviously a toad this time) and somehow extracted poison that the toad had stored in a secret chamber there. Anyone familiar with the feeding habits of Bufo marinus knows that to a toad, any moving object is fair game (Quesnel ). Small to medium-sized snakes are no exception, and observing a large toad with a portion of a partially engulfed snake still hanging out of its wide jaws would surely bolster this belief. The eating of snakes by frogs is beautifully illustrated by Vinton () in National Geographic. The duality of the venomous snake not only being able to kill, as it certainly does, but also being believed to have the capacity to heal is related by Doodnath (:), in the story of a snake charmer who called forth a hissing “mapepire balcin” and made it “put its mouth on the [snakebite] victim’s leg and sucked out the poison.” The -foot-long snake was then killed. It is not difficult to see how such a bad-tempered and venomous snake embodies all our fears of snakes and hence why fantastic legends are born and tales told about the mapepire balsain. Genus: Lachesis Daudin Lachesis Daudin  Lachesis muta muta (Linnaeus ) Mapepire Zanana, Bushmaster Plate  : TRINIDAD—NMBE; SMF a (Boettger ); NMBE (Roux ); BMNH  ..–,  ., –,  .–, ...–, AMNH , –, – (Riley and Self ); FMNH  (Murphy ).

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Fig. 47. Lachesis muta muta, mapepire zanana. Aroused, this large specimen should be respected.

 (fig. ): This is a large, rough-scaled light brown to yellow-brown snake with darker brown diamond-shaped saddles or markings along the dorsal surface, these markings having irregular triangular centers along the sides of the snake. Each scale on the dorsal surface is so rounded, raised, and distinct that it seems to stand out from the body. The head is blunt and toadlike, with a dark line from the eye to the corner of the mouth. The belly is pale yellowish cream. The tail terminates in a scaly spine. There is a distinct pit between the eye and the nostril. The mapepire zanana is the longest crotaline snake in the world, with lengths of up to  feet being reported (Ditmars :; Pope ); however, in Trinidad lengths of about  feet should be the expected maximum (Mole a). : Trinidad, equatorial forests of Brazil, Guyana, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay. Phelps and Phelps () noted that on Patos Island a former collector found “la culebra venenosa ‘coaima’—L. muta” but that they had found none.  : Mapepire z’ananna, bushmaster, mapepire, mapepire z’ananas or pineapple snake (Price ); mapepire ananas (de Verteuil ), mapepire z’nanna (Moonen ); pineapple mapepire (Mole a; Greenhall ); mappapsee (Day ), mapipere (Gamble ), mapipi (Sterns Fadelle ), mappipire (Harper ca. ), mappipie (Asibey ), true mapepire (Greenhall ); rattlesnake (Kingsley ), silent death of the black night (Mole b); mute crotal (De Suze ); surucucus (Fawcett ); la cascabela muda

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(Ditmars ), cuaima pina, concha pina, cuaima (Venezuela, Roze ); pit viper (Dinardo ), bushmaster (Haynes ), mapepire gallé (Campbell and Lamar ), Mr. Bushmaster, brother death (Hercules ). Zanana is the French Creole (patois) for “pineapple” (in French les ananas), applied to this snake because the rough, ridged scales of Lachesis muta are reminiscent of the skin of this fruit.  : The mapepire zanana is a large, shy, and secretive pit viper, mainly nocturnal and terrestrial, preferring the comparatively cooler, and higher ground in the forests to the lower, wetter river valleys (Mole, in Ditmars ). In its preferred terrain, the temperature in the daytime is a maximum of F, dropping to –F at night, and at times the humidity is from  to  percent (Oliver ). Such temperatures and humidity, with occasional artificial “rain,” have been used to try to keep this species alive and feeding in captivity in the Bronx Park Zoo in New York City (Oliver ; Dowling , ). In the main, bushmasters have been difficult to maintain in captivity. Injuries during initial capture and subsequent handling, and the presence of parasites in adults, are the main reasons for this. At times it lives in eroded cavities below the carpet of roots and leaves on the high jungle floor, or in the burrows of the tatoo (armadillo) and lappe (paca). Here, where the humidity is extremely high at all times, and contrary to the difficulties noted in sloughing its skin in captivity, successful shedding of the thin, brittle, but unusually hard skin is probably easily accomplished (Ditmars ). Whether the lappe and tatoo are too large as a food item for the bushmaster, whether there is some unknown sybiosis relationship, or whether the snake moves in and takes over the mammal’s burrow is not fully understood. Hunter folklore has both snake and mammal occupying the same hole. Beebe () noted that at one time the bushmaster, Lachesis muta, was more common in the Arima Valley than the fer-de-lance, Bothrops atrox, although in  Critchell noted the more usual fact that the bushmaster is rarely seen in the wild, except for the occasional roadkill on the Arima-Blanchisseuse road (Kricher ). Mole (a) noted that it was a “timid retiring brute,” rarely seen, and extremely sedentary. In  during a two-week visit to the Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley, James Danch encountered four bushmasters, two alive, one a roadkill, and the fourth discovered killed on the trail near the Asa Wright Nature Centre. His experience with the individuals he and his companions encountered was that this was a gentle, retiring snake (Danch ). The first snake had actually been stepped upon and had not retaliated or attempted to bite. It was generally considered that, due to the fragility of the spine in the neck area, attempts to force-feed these snakes usually led to their death (Ditmars ); Mole (b) had noted that when the snake was roughly grasped by the neck, the bones there broke audibly. Beebe () noted that coming upon a bushmaster

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near to the jungle laboratory in Kalacoon, in British Guiana, he “cut a light reed and with a slight blow on the neck disabled the snake so that it was quite harmless.” He further noted: “It is astonishing how light a tap will derange that wonderful chain of vertebrae which forms almost the entire skeleton.” Though this may be so, handling a mapepire zanana is not for the inexperienced or faint of heart, as the writhings and twistings of this rough-scaled snake are more reminiscent of a mechanical monster than of a living snake. Beebe () remarked that “it was no easy matter to hold the snake [an .-foot bushmaster], for the scales on its back were as rough and hard as a file, and a sudden twist fairly took the skin off one’s hand.” However, holding it too firmly, to prevent escape or a bite, could conceivably dislocate the neck vertebrae. This snake is one of the few egg-laying pit vipers in the world. Its eggs are sometimes found three to four feet underground (Mole, in Ditmars ). Roosevelt (), who saw a specimen of Mole’s that had laid  eggs in , reported that the female “brooded” the eggs. The first photograph of this unique event was taken by forest officer C. S. Rogers (Mole a, b). It was reproduced several times, in Ditmars () and in the Field Newspaper (Boulenger ), and was even made into a picture postcard (fig. ). This egg-laying viper was so unusual that it was reported several more times, and Amaral (c) published a photograph of two eggs. The Trinidad bushmaster has never been bred in captivity, though the species was bred in the Dallas Zoo in Texas, in , with specimens from Suriname (Boyer et al. ). The two subspecies from Central America, L. muta melanocephala and L. m. stenophrys, have also been bred in

Fig. 48. Lachesis muta muta, mapepire zanana. This first recorded egg laying by a viper attracted international attention. (Postcard photograph by C. S. Rogers, ca. 1903)

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captivity (Ripa ). Earl Turner () has reported the breeding of second generation L. m. stenophrys in captivity and noted the violent breeding ritual, in which the male courts the female by writhing about the enclosure on its dorsal surface, actually flipping the female over in his efforts. Though the adults are difficult to feed in captivity (Ditmars , quoting Mole), in the wild they feed on spiny rats (Beebe ) and—though it sounds fantastic—Beebe notes “small deer.” The mapepire zanana is reputed to grow to a length of  feet; one that size has not been recorded for Trinidad, but a newly born brocket deer, Mazama americana, or one of the smaller species of South American deer could certainly be accommodated by a large mapepire zanana. In the wild, the young snakes take mice (Orde ; Ditmars ), as they do in captivity (Wehekind ); in the wild they possibly also eat amphibian and reptilian prey, for Mole () noted that when starving, they would take frogs. Oliver () stated that Lachesis should have no trouble in handling a mongoose; however, when one of these snakes was placed with a mongoose, a staged fight for charity fund-raising (People ), the shyness and retiring nature of a (possibly neck-damaged) mapepire zanana was no match for the mammal. The writer of “Crocodile Tears” (People ) had no sympathy whatsoever for the outmatched snake, as he considered the mapepire zanana a menace to humanity and thought the mongoose, which he erroneously said was brought to Trinidad specifically to eradicate snakes, was only doing its job. (The mongoose was brought to the West Indies primarily to eradicate rats.) Urich (), however, noted that neither snake nor mongoose was likely to have any impact on the other as, in the wild, the two choose entirely different habitats. Mole (a) called mapepire zanana a “timid retiring brute,” and my observations have tended to bear this out. Though some reports conflict with this finding, there are enough stories about how placid this snake is in the face of the utmost provocation to underscore that if it lived up to the belligerence broadly expected of a large snake, many more hapless and careless people would have been bitten, perhaps fatally. Oliver () tells of William Lundy mistaking a large specimen for a boa constrictor and handling it, putting it into the trunk of his car. Fawcett () had earlier told of children in South America playing with one without getting bitten. Two similar stories came to my attention in Trinidad. John Dunstan, a wellknown snake man who lived in Arima, was often brought snakes in a variety of makeshift containers. One day a man came to his house carrying a large “pitchoil” (kerosene) can. The contents were usually poured out of a corner of the tin, where two slits in the metal created a triangular opening. The man said he had caught Dunstan a “nice macajuel” and had put it into the tin and sealed the hole with a wad of hibiscus leaves. He had come to Arima from Sangre Grande on the local bus, carrying the tin with snake inside. The snake, no doubt having trouble

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breathing in the fumes of whatever had been in the tin—kerosene or coconut oil—had been attempting to escape, and was pushing its head through the wad of leaves. The man told Dunstan that he had had to keep tapping the snake on the head every time it emerged from the hole to make it retreat back into the tin, before his fellow passengers could notice anything unusual. He had the tin on his lap the whole time, as he could neither tell the bus driver nor let his fellow passengers know what he was carrying. Dunstan, thanking him, pulled out the wad of leaves and discovered quite a large mapepire zanana inside the tin. In the s, the head keeper of the Emperor Valley Zoo, Nelson Augustine, lived in a bungalow on the premises and was accustomed to having to take in all sorts of animals, donated after zoo closing hours. One night a crowd of people came trooping up to his gate to “donate” a snake, a “macajuel,” they said, to the zoo. The brave donor had seen the snake crossing the road near Church Street in Petit Valley (just west of Port of Spain), had picked it up, and had put it into a flat cardboard box that opened at the small narrow side. He related that he had caught a route-taxi and traveled to the zoo, telling his tale of how he had caught the snake and opening the box to show anyone who was not afraid to approach the snake in the box. At every opportunity, he poked at the snake with a stick to make it move, and shone a flashlight into the box to show it off. To Augustine’s horror, when he looked at the snake, he immediately recognized it as a mapepire zanana. The zoo curator, Ray Shingler, later shipped this snake to the Regents Park Zoo in London. Misidentification of a bushmaster as a boa constrictor was reported by Danch (). A member of a nighttime search party near the Asa Wright Nature Centre had actually stepped on the snake and reported that he had found a boa. Upon closer examination and more informed identification, the snake turned out to be a bushmaster. Danch was told of a similar event that had occurred in the same area several years earlier; another guest at the center had picked up a snake and carried it back to the cabin where he was staying, thinking he had collected a boa constrictor. Morly Read and companions (Read ), on the mountain ridge between Morne Bleu and Mt. Aripo, discovered a large snake, apparently asleep on the trail. They simply scooped it up in a butterfly net—exactly as had happened to one kept in the Bronx Park Zoo years before (Dowling )—and brought it down the mountain the following day, donating it to the zoo in Port of Spain. Placed in a display cage, the snake coiled up in a corner and never moved, never fed, until one day it convulsed and died due to a massive infestation of pentastomid worms (see later discussion). Wehekind () reports almost stepping on a bushmaster that he surmised had been asleep; he was not bitten, but he felt he had been in “grave danger.” The other side of the coin is drastically different, though one wonders how

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much credence can be given to some of the stories. Ditmars () recorded what he described as the “bushmaster’s gliding style of attack” after filming this snake in an open paddock. Such a secretive and elusive snake would surely feel vulnerable being exposed in such an open area, and Ditmars may have misinterpreted the movement of the snake toward the only shade or seemingly enclosed or safe area—the cameraman and his camera and tripod—as an “attack.” Fawcett (), known for his fantastic tales of anacondas, tells of a dead man found with a bushmaster still coiled around his thigh, after the man had been bitten several times and had died. Sanderson (), while exploring in the Northern Range of Trinidad, fell into a pitlike depression and found himself in the company of what he called a “mapipi” only  inches long, which began “striking continuously” at him. He said he recognized it as a mapipi from descriptions given to him by locals, which at the best of times are extremely unreliable, as every snake qualifies as a “mapipi.” But the described behavior of this particular snake is more reminiscent of the more common nonvenomous dos cocorite, Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis, which at  inches is blotched and banded and could possibly be mistaken in Sanderson’s natural terror for a deadly snake (see Pseustes account). In any case, Sanderson escaped without being bitten, and the story is a better one if it features a deadly mapipi. Nevertheless, the mapepire zanana bite under certain circumstances, in defense or to feed. The strike and bite of one specimen in the collection of the Emperor Valley Zoo were fearsomely accurate on the rats supplied for food. Mole and Urich (b) state that hunting dogs, when bitten, are seldom killed, but Carr () tells of four dogs being bitten in quick succession when they came upon a large specimen of this snake and attacked it. Two of the dogs died, the first almost immediately, obviously getting the first, full dose of venom, and the second some time later. The third and fourth dogs, treated with bush medicine antidote, survived to hunt again another day. These surviving dogs had obviously been less envenomated when they were bitten. Gordon () too notes that hunting dogs are killed by the venomous snakes they encounter. On a bird-watching jaunt up in the Paragrande area of the Northern Range, a dog accompanying us was bitten by a snake—I was unable to ascertain which of the two vipers was the culprit; both are fairly common in the area. Despite all efforts by a veterinarian, the dog died the following morning, approximately twelve hours after being bitten on the right shoulder. Like Bothrops, the mapepire zanana has been reported to vibrate the thornlike “horn-tipped” tail against the surrounding dry leaves or bushes when aroused (Mole b; Trinidad Guardian a; Shortt ; Kricher ). I have not met any person who has been bitten by Lachesis. All the snakebite cases on which I have been called to the General Hospital to give advice on treatment have involved Bothrops.

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Mole (b), quoting from a written account (intended for publication) that he must have received from A. B. Carr, describes what happened when Carr was hunting lappe in the Mamural Valley in . After killing a lappe that had been speared down in its burrow, Carr, feeling what he thought was another animal in the hole, perhaps a scaly armadillo, thrust his arm into the hole, holding a knife to try to stab the animal. He was bitten, and pulling out his arm, he saw that it was in fact a mapepire zanana, for the snake was still holding onto his thumb. Treatment with “Melidor’s Antidote to Snake-Bite” and ligatures did little to alleviate the immediate pain or the following weeks of agony, vomiting, and being confined to his bed. Though Carr was fairly certain he had been bitten by a mapepire zanana, there was some doubt about the identity of the snake, as it was not captured or killed, despite a visit within a fortnight afterward to the hole where the bite had occurred. However, a freshly sloughed mapepire zanana skin was found close to the hole from which the offending snake had apparently escaped, although the hole had been filled in with earth in an attempt to imprison it. As fearsome as this snake has been portrayed to be, it too is vulnerable to predation from other ophiophagus snakes, such as the black cribo, Clelia clelia, and the ever-eager ratonel Pseudoboa neuwiedii (Mole a). Undoubtedly, large individuals of Drymarchon and Pseustes also take Lachesis muta. However, one of the major causes of death, at least in captivity, is the presence of large numbers of pentastomid parasitic worms living in the lungs and bronchial tract of this snake. Autopsies performed on specimens that have refused to feed in captivity, and that have convulsed violently before dying in what appears to be agony, have exposed masses of these – cm worms (fig. ). Ditmars () stated that these pentastomid worms pierced the lungs. One specimen, killed on a road in the southwest of the island, had worms filling the mouth; some were trying to crawl away from the carcass. These lung parasites were noted by Mole and Urich (b) when they were attempting to keep these snakes in captivity. Boyer et al. (), in efforts to breed bushmasters from various locations in the species’ range, found that those from Trinidad, besides having the heaviest infestation of parasites including cestodes, strongyles, and ascarids, were also the only specimens that had pentastomids. Everard () noted the following parasites in Lachesis muta from Trinidad: the protozoan Haemogregarina (poss.) seligmanni; the cestode Crepidobothrium gerrardi; the nematode Kalicephalus, and the pentastomid Porocephalus clavatus. Riley and Self (), however, determined that the species of Porocephalus found in L. muta from Trinidad was P. stilesi and not clavatus. Sprent () speculated that L. muta might be the intermediate host for the rare human parasite Logochilascaris minor but could find no evidence to support this. Undoubtedly, it is the rare mapepire zanana that, once seen, escapes alive from woodsmen or hunters, who view it as their duty to rid the high woods and jungles

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Fig. 49. Autopsy of a mapepire zanana reveals pentastomid worms, Porocephalus stilesi.

of this “menace,” and expensive shotgun shells are spent in killing this snake whenever it is encountered. Asibey () reports that one hunter “harvested”  of these snakes in the – hunting season, with a total weight of . kg, the average per animal being . kg. There are still many mysteries to be resolved concerning the life history and physiology of the mapepire zanana, the bushmaster, Lachesis muta, before we have a clear understanding of its place in fast disappearing remote jungles or of its captive needs. But perhaps it qualifies as a sign of changing perspectives that the mapepire zanana was chosen to be on a recent issue of postage stamps; its unique color and pattern are immortalized on the $. denomination stamp. : Although what is known of this comparatively rare, shy, retiring snake offers little to substantiate the tales, the mapepire zanana continues to inspire tall tales and to embody all that has come to be imagined or expected of the primal evil serpent. It is seen as the very incarnation of the devil, the serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden, the lithe beauty of the mapepire zanana fitting the bill in every respect. People believed that with its unblinking eyes it can see whoever is sinful and whoever is righteous. While hunting for mapepire zananas in British Guiana in , I encountered some of these beliefs. Elliot Olton and I had traveled by river steamer up to the little town of Bartica, where the Essiquibo and Mazaruni rivers come together. We befriended and hired the local snake man, Mr. Phillips (as I will call him), to

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guide and assist us in our hunt for snakes—any snakes—for so far we had come up virtually empty-handed in our sorties into the extremely unfriendly local bush. Mr. Phillips said he was familiar with the bushmaster, the “coonocooshe,” as he called it. For days and nights he led us through the bush, always promising that a snake would be just around the next tree stump or under the next log. But we saw and caught nothing. One morning, starting early and having described a huge circle through clinging mud and stands of thorny palms, we suddenly emerged from the bush into a hillside clearing where there were rows upon rows of cassava sticks with newly sprouting leaves. Up on the hillside was an elderly woman, stooping over and digging around the plants with her cutlass. Calls and salutations were exchanged between our guide and the gardener, who asked what such an unlikely party was doing in her garden at that time of the morning. Phillips explained to her that Elliot and I were snake experts and were looking to catch snakes. The gardener drew herself up to her full height. Shaking her cutlass at our guide, she declared: “Mr. Phillips, you wasting your time. You know I is a Godfearing woman, and no snake does come near me. So you wasting your time on my land. They have no snake here!” I was standing quite near to her as she rested her foot on a fallen log, probably part of the original jungle that had been cleared to make way for her cassava garden. Some weeds and small plants had grown up alongside the log; using my snake tongs, I was pushing these weeds and grasses aside to expose the shaded underside of the log. Barely three feet from her foot I uncovered not a bushmaster but a dark purplish mapepire balsain, the British Guianan labaria. The gardener stomped off, shouting that we were the devil and that we had “brought the snake there to tempt her.” The mapepire zanana is undoubtedly a very venomous snake, and due to its size, it is potentially a very dangerous one, though the risks are offset by its usually retiring and gentle disposition. However, one should never be complacent about such a large, powerful, venomous animal, as snake man Allan Rodriguez decided one night while in the bush in the Cumaca River valley. He spotted one of these large snakes, and while looking around for a suitable locale to isolate and capture it, he came upon another, and then a third. Three mapepire zananas together were a rare find. They were alert, possibly engaged in the single-minded business of competing for a female—perhaps one of the trio was giving olfactory signals that she was receptive to suitors. Deciding that discretion was the greater part of valor, Rodriguez left them to their jungle tryst. Around a hunter’s campfire, such an event would no doubt have spawned many a story embellished with added details of the flickering tongue—the so-called “lance”—along with the “pickah” in the tail, which is believed to be as venomous as the teeth. The horny, thornlike tail is often kept as a trophy by hunters, and is steeped

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in rum, sometimes along with the snake’s head, to be used as an antidote for snakebite. Oft-repeated stories involve how the mapepire zanana is irresistibly attracted to light, especially campfires and the headlamps hunters wear. Mole (a) relates how a large mapepire zanana, the fore portion of its sinuous body held upright, came toward a petrified hunter because it was attracted by the light he was wearing on his forehead, until a fellow hunter, with a single blow of the ever-present cutlass, swiped off the snake’s head. The next morning the severed head, which had been lost in the darkness and the fear, was found “firmly grasping in its enormously fanged jaws, the stem of a young tree” (p. ). This is related in order to illustrate the belief that the head alone can still deliver a bite, still death-dealing, even when separated from the body. Hunters believe in an alliance between the mapepire zanana and the paca or lappe (Allen and Chapman ) with which it often shares a burrow, relating that the lappe will run to the hole so that the snake will bite the pursuing dogs. It is often claimed that unlike other poisonous snakes, from which bites on the lower legs are commonly reported, the mapepire zanana strikes high, this habit being seen as somehow malevolent and wicked. Oliver () tells a story that seems to bear this out, of a mapepire zanana lying coiled high on a bank above a passing file of hunters and striking out at them so violently that it missed them and shot clean over their heads, disappearing on the lower side of the trail. Of course these missed strikes give the lie to another belief: that with every such miss, the neck of the snake is automatically broken, snapped like the crack of a whip. It is sometimes also believed of the mapepire zanana and other poisonous snakes that after one has fed, it is not full of venom again within the following two weeks, and thus all bites are not necessarily dangerous. The occurrence of less serious bites is now well known, and the phenomenon of the so-called dry bite of many poisonous snakes, when the snake seems to withhold its venom, often causes puzzlement on the part of the victim and the attending physician— also leading to claims of miracle cures by bush doctors and quack practitioners when in fact little or no venom has been injected as a result of a bite. A tale about a dry bite with a less than happy ending is told by Tanis and Martin Jordan (). In the Maracas Valley, where the snake man Clifford Chan held sway for many years (see Bothrops account), two hunters in the hills came unexpectedly upon a large “mapipee”—so unexpectedly that one hunter stepped on the snake. It promptly bit him on the thigh (the “high bite”). He fell to the ground, screaming that he was already as good as dead. The second hunter, going to his aid, was struck at by the snake too, but instead of puncturing his leg, the fangs hooked the top of his “tall-tops,” high rubber boots traditionally worn by hunters, and stuck there. Feeling the impact of the bite, and looking back, he saw the snake stretched out behind him and snagged in his boot. Like a cat with a tin can

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tied to its tail, the man took off running, the unfortunate snake having no choice but to be dragged along by its teeth. Every time he looked back, the snake was still there. The terrified man did not stop until he had charged through the village bawling for help, and he collapsed exhausted, the snake literally beaten and flailed to death by his run. Soon afterward the first man walked into the village; he had suffered a dry bite with no effects. The second man, however, is said to have died of a heart attack due to his exhaustion and terror. Russel (), quoting Reid (), states that as many as  percent of snakebite cases reported in India were cases of nonenvenomation. As already noted, bushmasters are believed to be drawn to the light of campfires, and they are further believed to coil up in the fire ashes and be burned to death. Though snakes do thermoregulate by basking in the sun, lying on a warm substrate, the suicidal action of entering hot ashes must surely be wishful folklore. Though they are deaf to air-borne sound, they are thought to have a keen sense of hearing. Fawcett (), who relates the fire stories, also tells of hearing a mapepire zanana asleep in a hollow tree but emitting “a thin, shrill whining noise.” Whatever it was that Fawcett said he heard—perhaps bush cricket, cicada, or frog—it is unlikely that any mapepire zanana made the sound. That they are supposed to be able to hear is the basis of the stories told of a snake man in the Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley who could call mapepires out of the bamboos (an unlikely arboreal home for the ground-loving mapepire zanana) by whistling shrilly. But even Ditmars () tells the same story that my father and uncles told me when I was a boy on family picnics on the banks of the Caura and Maracas rivers: that the flower bracts of the balisier, Heliconia bihai, when articulated by opening and closing the partially opened elements, was a “snake caller” due to the squeaking sound it made. “Snake in the balisier” is a well-known local saying of admonition to beware of a hidden danger or unseen enemies. This saying is often used by opponents of the People’s National Movement political party; the PNM chose this same inflorescence as their party symbol, to be figured on their neckties and used to decorate platforms for rallies and political speeches. From  to  the Calypsonians (singers of Calypsos) have had a field day comparing the politicians who have won or lost elections to the snakes they saw lurking in the balisier, symbol of the Peoples National Movement, the incumbent candidates becoming the snakes due to their dangerous cunning and guile (Barnes ). Ditmars () also related that it was a snake, a mapepire zanana, that told a boy where the body of crashed aviator Mikey Cipriani was to be found in the wilderness of the Northern Range. Cipriani, with his companion Leslie Bradshaw, took off for Tobago from an airfield near Port of Spain on June , . They disappeared, and their bodies were finally located by a hunter on June  (Kelshall ). The snake has generally not been given its due historical place in this incident.

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In Trinidad, to be alert and poised to spring or to take advantage of a situation is to be “set like a mapepire” (Mendes ). Set is itself a local term for “poised to strike,” and a set mapepire is always thought to have a single, evil purpose— not to bite any passerby at random but, as Roosevelt () retold A. B. Carr’s tale, waiting for the last man in a single row of hunters or walkers filing past. In Suriname, apparently these snakes have learned to count, for they are said only to strike the third man in the line (Abuys ). In Suriname, too, it is believed that to prevent “revenge” by another snake—remember they always hunt in pairs!—the head and tail of the offending snake must be buried by the person bitten; furthermore, after the victim person has taken the snake venom antidote, some undescribed secret local concoction, the victim must not go close to any pregnant woman, as her unborn child will be killed. Revenge is generally believed to be carried out by the mate of the killed snake. It was reported (Trinidad Guardian b) that when one mapepire zanana—. feet long and  inches in circumference, automatically assumed to be a male because of its size—was killed, it would be avenged by the deadlier-than-the-male female snake sure to be lurking nearby. Though bites from this species are in fact rare, it is related that if a person is bitten, the reaction is dramatic. Sanderson () retells a story told to him of a man who, bitten by a “mapipi,” was thrown  feet by “the contractions of his muscles with the sudden pain”; moreover, he relates the belief that “once hit, although not dead, one is paralyzed and that ants and worms set to work on one’s carcass without further ado” (p. ). Similarly, I have been told that if I were bitten by a mapepire zanana, my fate would be immediately evident, for as soon as I was bitten, “blue fly go light on you.” In light of all this, the fear of this snake was so great that it took  men to stop the flight to freedom of a .-foot snake at Palo Seco (Trinidad Guardian b). None of its believed cunning or malevolence or magic was useful against such overwhelming odds; there was no obeah man to assist the snake, to give it instructions, to “sook” it on the pursuers, as in a story told by Hercules () of a snake sooked on a man, from the cover of some rosebushes, as an embodiment of Brother Death or Mr. Bushmaster. One wonders how so many legends have been born, and still have life, concerning a snake that in life is almost exactly opposite in temperament and habit to how it is seen in fantasy.

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Snakebite Antidotes and Anecdotes

All snakes bite. In some form, no matter how small or large—from the minuscule species of burrowing blind and thread snakes of the families Typhlopidae and Leptotyphlopidae to the giants, pythons and boas of the family Boidae— snakes must bite to catch, hold onto, and eat their prey. In some snakes, the bite is swiftly followed by the swallowing process. Be it a tiny arthropod, worm, fish, tadpole, frog, lizard, bird, mammal, or even another snake, the prey item is worked backward in the mouth into the throat by a series of articulated bites and is swallowed whole, sometimes still alive. In rare cases, it is suspected that a piece of the prey is bitten off and swallowed. Although this has not been witnessed, it is suspected for the snake Atractus trilineatus, but the nature of the prey, earthworms, is to break up under extreme stress, which may be the basis of the suspicion. Lizard tails that break off during a capture struggle and are then eaten by the predatory snake should not be classified as evidence of the snake biting off chunks of its food. A lizard has little chance of escape if a striking snake seizes it by the body or head; though the tail may become detached in the following death struggle, the lizard is swallowed headfirst and whole, like most other prey items. In the families Leptotyphlopidae, Typhlopidae, and Aniliidae the prey items are grasped in the jaws and worked backwards into the throat by the “walking” motion of the very mobile jaws. In the Boidae, the boas and pythons, there is always a strike followed by a swift looping of the fore body around the prey, the coils tightening forcefully enough to suffocate the victim. When all movement has ceased, and there is some speculation that the snake might be able to detect the cessation of the heart beat, the coils are loosened, the snake seeks out the snout of the prey, and the swallowing process begins. Contrary to popular belief, the bones are not crushed or only

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incidentally broken in the violence of the constricting struggle. Once swallowed, the victim is often pulled through the still partially enfolding coils, which seems to elongate the body to aid swallowing. There is no coating of the prey with slime or saliva, as was once thought. This belief arose from the discovery of regurgitated prey items from a snake that had rejected a too-big meal or was disturbed in the process of swallowing and got rid of the heavy meal in a hurry to make its escape. The Colubridae, a mixed bag of harmless snakes, feed in various ways. Some species are powerful constrictors, rolling their prey into tight tubes of symmetrical coils, pulling the prey through as it is consumed. Others, especially the diurnal hunters such as Spilotes, Pseustes, Mastigodryas, Chironius, and Drymarchon, seize their prey and begin to swallow it while it is still alive. Only sometimes do they press a coil against the struggling animal, pinning it to the ground or against a nearby log or rock, immobilizing it while they begin to swallow. In the subfamily Dipsadinae, two species of which feed almost exclusively on shelled and shell-less mollusks, the prey is first enfolded in the coils, with no real constriction. The snake uses its specialized teeth to either extract the snail from the shell or work the slippery slug into the jaws and throat. A third group of snakes uses another means of killing prey before eating it. This is the group of snakes usually considered when looking at snakebite, especially as related to humans, for though humans are not and cannot be the prey of this group of snakes, bites harm and sometimes kill people. These snakes use modified saliva as venom to subdue or kill their prey, and they are divided into further subgroups by differences in the venom-delivering apparatus. Some snakes have extremely sophisticated means of ensuring that the venom is put to the most efficient use, primarily for offense in securing prey and secondarily in defense against predators or intruders into their domain, including the human intruders with whom we are mainly concerned here. The problems of ingesting an animal whole and digesting it before it putrefies while in the stomach are handled mainly by extremely efficient digestive juices in the stomach of the snake. But some snakes, over the course of their evolution, developed a more effective digestive juice in the salivary glands, and instead of this juice simply coating the prey as it passes through the mouth, with the substance only incidentally entering the puncture wounds made during capture and swallowing, the saliva is injected into the prey by modified teeth. The most primitive of these teeth are merely grooved, and may be slightly enlarged, enabling the highly digestive saliva—in reality now a toxin or venom—to enter deep into the wounds in the prey and to begin the digestive process from the inside of the prey, from the moment it is bitten until it is fully digested in the stomach. In more advanced snakes, these specialized teeth—the groove so deeply incised and enclosed that it forms a tube—are situated at the front of the upper

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jaw; these teeth are brought into play as fangs. In one group of snakes the fangs are mounted on a movable bone, which folds the sharp, hollow, curved teeth backward out of the way when the mouth is closed. During a strike, the mouth is opened; the fangs spring forward and are stabbed into the victim. Venom, a specialized mixture that quickly immobilizes and kills the prey, is injected deeply into the body of the food item by contraction of muscles surrounding the venom gland. This is the kind of bite, with its attendant injected venom, that constitutes the hazard of snakebite to humans. A second group of venomous snakes have the hollow or deeply grooved teeth fixed, immobile, in the front of the upper jaw. These teeth are usually short and do not fold out of the way when the mouth is closed, but the toxicity of the venom among these snakes is often greater, which seems to compensate for the lesser efficiency of the smaller delivery apparatus. These snakes chew on their prey to aid the injection of poison. The toxicity of the venom or modified saliva of the snakes possessing this aid to digestion or defense varies considerably, in many cases seemingly being prey-specific. Snakes that have no grooved or specialized enlarged teeth or fangs are sometimes referred to as aglyphs—having no fangs. Some of these snakes, in the family Colubridae, have also been found to have prey-specific toxic saliva, which may affect people who are bitten, with effects ranging from mild irritation to swelling at the site of the bite. A bite on my thumb from one of these (see Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus species account) caused burning and mild itching. Other colubrids that have grooved, enlarged fangs to the rear of the upper jaw—that is, back-fanged or rear-fanged snakes—have extremely toxic salivary secretions. Though a bite to a human victim by one of the largest of these snakes in Trinidad, Clelia, has never been recorded, the effects of a bite on a cat, and of a bite on my finger by a close relative, Pseudoboa neuwiedii, have been documented (Boos c). Bites from Leptodeira annulata and Oxybelis aeneus are reported to have a similar effect, of slight swelling accompanied by itching and burning or tingling. Anolis lizards bitten by snakes of the genera Leptodeira, Oxyrhopus, Oxybelis, and Leptophis die soon afterward. Two species of grooved back-fanged snakes from Africa—the boomslang, Dispholidus typus, and the twig snake, Thelatornis kirtlandii—are considered dangerous to people due to the toxicity of their venom (Mehrtens ). These back-fanged snakes are sometimes referred to as opisthoglyphs. According to Warrell and Fenner (), five species of Colubridae usually considered harmless have been responsible for fatal envenomation of people. The snakes with fixed grooved or hollow fangs at the front of the upper jaw, sometimes referred to as the proteroglyphs, are the Elapids—the cobras and mambas of Africa and Asia, the marine snakes of the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the coral snakes of the New World. Their venom is mainly neurotoxic in

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nature; that is, it affects the functioning of the nervous system. In some species, there is also a component in the venom that does considerable tissue damage. Bites from the majority of these snakes, especially the species that grow to over a meter long (including the large coral snake from Trinidad, Micrurus lemniscatus diutius) are extremely dangerous to humans, often resulting in death. The vipers and pit vipers, having enlarged hollow fangs mounted on a movable bone in the front of the upper jaw, are sometimes referred to as solenoglyphs. In this group, which includes the rattlesnakes, the mapepire zanana or bushmaster, and the mapepire balsain, are some of the largest venomous snakes in the world; only the Elapid king cobra of India exceeds the South American bushmaster in length. Bites from these snakes, in which a large quantity of mainly hemolytic venom (that is, affecting the blood) may be injected, are extremely dangerous and life-threatening to humans. Such bites cause massive destruction to body tissue, both at the site of the bite and elsewhere within the victim’s vascular system.

Factors in the Effects of Snakebite on Humans To recap, we have seen that snakes bite to secure prey and to defend themselves. Some snakes have specialized saliva and specialized equipment for delivering this saliva—the venom. And some of the bites from some of these snakes are harmful to people. But there are several other considerations in determining the effects of snakebite on humans. Is the snake venomous? If it is, how much venom and what kind of venom has been injected? Is anything known about the quality of the venom injected? What size is the victim? What is the victim’s state of health and susceptibility? And what is the site of the bite? All these variables affect the outcome of each individual bite. There are no set, predictable results for any snakebite. Is the Snake Venomous?

Generally speaking, people are afraid of snakes, and the fear derives from the very real fact that some snakes can and do kill with a venomous bite. The bite itself, venomous or not, can generate terror, perhaps strong enough to cause death of the victim. In the absence of a venomous bite, the snake is accorded other attributes ranging from biblical damnation (Genesis :–) to magical properties such as having evil or healing powers, being a god, or being immortal. As a last indignity and cause for human fright, a really large snake, though not venomous, may consider humans as food and eat us, as has been reported on several occasions (Morris and Morris ; Natura ; Trinidad Guardian

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). In  it was reported in the Journal Star of Peoria, Illinois, that in New York, a -foot python had killed its -year-old owner, who had attempted to feed his pet and was constricted in the process (Crocker ). Doubtless, many bites have been considered and recorded as venomous because of ignorance on the part of the victim, generating the fear of possible imminent death and sometimes leading to death from causes associated with this fear. Applied to such bites, folk cures have seemingly had miraculous results, enhancing the reputation of healers and their quack medicines and encouraging people to place their faith in such cures, which in the case of a toxic bite can result in delay of proper treatment until it is too late. Bites from nonvenomous snakes have none of the obvious symptoms of either a neurotoxic or a hemotoxic bite. Though there may be pain from the tooth punctures, accompanied by considerable bleeding, depending on how large a snake was involved—a large python, boa, or colubrid can do considerable damage—there are none of the immediate or secondary symptoms that follow a venomous bite. Coral Snakes and the Elapids A bite from one of these snakes is usually accompanied by pain at the site of the bite, sometimes severe but not agonizing; however, in the absence of this symptom, the most definite and distinct result and symptom of an elapid bite is the victim’s loss of control of the eyelids, usually within  minutes of the bite. Symptoms of difficulty in breathing, giddiness, and irregular heart rhythm follow, and in cases where serious envenomation has occurred, death may be the result. Mapepires and Other Vipers and Crotalids When you are bitten by one of these snakes, you know you have been bitten. There is immediate pain and swelling, similar to that in other severe stings such as those of the large wasps. But this bite, if severe, is no wasp sting. These symptoms will naturally follow light or severe envenomation: numbness, blurred vision, intense pain, vomiting, shock, kidney damage, with eventual collapse and in some cases death. In any event, there is no mistaking this venomous bite. When none of these attendant symptoms appear, the bite is either from a nonvenomous snake or no venom has been injected into the wound. The phenomenon of a venomous snake withholding its venom, though it has struck and bitten and even caused puncture wounds at the site of the bite, is called a “dry bite.” Though one may have seen the snake and identified it as a venomous one, no envenomation occurs and none of its immediate or secondary symptoms follow. No one is quite sure how or why this happens, at times apparently at random. Speculation is that () there was no venom to inject, the store in the venom glands of the snake being exhausted by a recent feeding or biting episode; () the bite was made and the teeth withdrawn before the venom

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could be squeezed out of the venom sacs and down the hollow teeth into the flesh of the victim; or () the snake intentionally withheld the venom because the bite was a defensive one and the snake was aiming to deter and frighten off the threat using a bluff-strike and bite. Though this last circumstance imparting intent to the snake seems open to challenge, nevertheless many bites have been recorded that would seem to indicate a full bite being made but no venom being injected. Minton and Minton () state that in accordance with recent findings, up to one third to half of all recorded bites resulted in little or no envenomation at all. Hayes () demonstrated such intentional control or “metering” of the amount of venom by some rattlesnakes, after this had been suspected to be the case for some time (Minton and Minton :–). Dry bites have no doubt led to claims of miracle cures by dubious means, dubious practitioners, and the vendors of elixirs, potions, and amulets. That is, as in cases of bites by nonvenomous snakes, the “cure” was successful because there was nothing to cure in the first place. When the cure does not work in the event of a bona fide envenomation, the victim is usually blamed for seeking help too late and taken to a hospital for modern medical treatment to save life or limb. Amount and Type of Venom Injected

If the biting snake was venomous and the bite was not dry, the victim has had some quantity—however minute—of toxin injected into the body tissues. The effects of any given bite will vary with the amount of venom injected. Small amounts will more than likely result in less severe symptoms, whereas a large amount will have more pronounced results and pose a greater chance of death. These effects are also controlled by the type of venom that is injected—that is, the type of snake involved. The venom present in the snakes with grooved back fangs (Pseudoboa, Leptodeira, Oxybelis) has mainly proven to be nonfatal to humans, except in a few isolated cases in snakes from Africa, the bird snake (Thelotornis kirtlandii) and the boomslang (Dispholidus typus). As earlier noted, the effects are generally slight abrasion wounds or punctures, with some mild swelling, itching, and burning at the site of the bite. If the bite is from a snake with mainly neurotoxic venom—that is, one of the Elapidae (the large coral snake, Micrurus lemniscatus diutius)—symptoms may vary considerably from those of a person bitten by one of the hemotoxic crotalids or viperids, as already described for these two categories of venomous snakes. Of course, the larger the snake, the larger the quantity of venom that may be injected. But a large snake may also inject a small amount of venom, and a small snake may inject a large dose, depending on the circumstances of each individual bite and each individual snake.

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Quality of Venom Injected

Though little is actually known about the differing quality of the venom of individuals of the same species at different times, it is reasonable to assume that a snake that feeds on a regular basis, emptying and refilling its poison glands regularly, will have venom of a slightly or greatly different quality and concentration to that of one that has not fed and used its venom for some time. Differing effects in bite victims may reflect such variance in the quality and perhaps concentration of certain components of the venom. Snakes classified in the same family have basically similar venoms, and thus the expected effects of their bites would be similar. However, some members within a given genus—for example, Bothrops insularis from Queimada Grande Island off the southeast coast of Brazil, and the South American rattlesnake Crotalus durissus—have venom more toxic than that of the other species in their genera or have a more neurotoxic component than is usual. Minton and Minton (:) have even found that “the unpredictable variation within venom of a single species has made it almost impossible to establish international standards of potency for serums used in the treatment of snake bites” (emphasis added). Size of the Prey or Victim

A small mammal, such as a mouse, struck and bitten by a large crotalid, may die instantly. Long fangs are driven deep into the body cavity of the prey animal, which dies of shock from the wound and from the comparatively large volume of venom squirted into its vital organs. The initial damage done by the fangs and the killing dose injected have the desired effect of literally dropping the prey in its tracks. Some venomous snakes strike and, instead of letting go of the victim, hold on for the few seconds it takes the shudders and kicking to subside and stop. Others, such as Oxyuranus scutellatus, the taipan of Australia, considered one of the world’s most venomous snakes, bite their prey and withdraw, awaiting its inevitable death. The initial bite seems to have little immediate effect, but a period of compulsive activity of the bitten prey follows, the mouse in this case “washing” its face with its fore feet and walking in circles, watched intently by the snake. Suddenly the mouse begins a series of jumps and leaps, recovering its feet less and less with each leap, until it lies on its side, still alive but unable to move, at which point the snake, following with flickering tongue the odor trail left by the now immobile or dead mouse, finds it, often swallowing the dying but still breathing animal. This for a small mouse. Proportionately larger and larger prey generally show longer and longer reaction times and varying effects. Carr’s () story of the four hunting dogs bitten by the same mapepire zanana (see Lachesis muta spe-

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cies account) is a good illustration of several points being related here. The first dog, bitten in defense by the snake, died quickly; the second died sometime afterward; the third and fourth survived. The relative sizes of the four dogs in question were not stated, but the smaller, swifter, and more aggressive ones are often at the fore in any hunting action, while the larger and perhaps wiser old hounds may hold back a little. Greater body bulk in the last two dogs and depletion of the snake’s venom after two bites may be what allowed those dogs to survive with minor damage—though the cure was attributed to the “bush medicine” applied by the owner, without which no self-respecting hunter would venture into the bush (Morean a). Extrapolating upward to prey animals of larger size until the bulk of a child or human adult is considered, it is thus reasonable to assume that a child bitten is in greater danger than an adult of three or four times the body weight and mass. Yet this is not to say that a child would not survive and a full-grown adult not die from apparently similar bites, when one considers the variables discussed here. Health and Susceptibility of the Victim

In general, healthy people can brush off injury and exposure to illness far better than can those unfortunate individuals who are frail or sick. Another factor may be individual susceptibility to venom. It is known that some people are highly susceptible to the venom itself. It is also a well-known fact that some people are highly susceptible to stings and bites from plants, ants, bees, wasps, and other biting and stinging animals and have violent reactions that can be life-threatening. It would be unsurprising to find that some people are highly reactive to the components of snake venom, far beyond the “normal” physical reactions that are on record, a view supported by Minton and Minton (). John Cann, a famous snake man, herpetologist, and author, was bitten by one of the Australian elapids, the rough-scaled snake, Tropedechis carinatus. A well-built man of perhaps  pounds, Cann was unconscious in seconds, having been able to walk only approximately  feet; he did survive the bite, probably due to his general good health. Though Tropedechis is known to cause death, Cann was more than likely highly sensitive to the specialized neurotoxin of this species. He was also probably bitten on his hand, which leads us to the last of this set of variables. Site of the Bite

Most snakebites tend to be on the extremities—victims suffer bites on the feet and toes while walking through the bush barefooted or on the hands and fingers

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during the planting and reaping of root crops and rice—although bites are also recorded on other parts of the body. Clifford Chan was bitten on the back of the wrist while trying to recapture a large mapepire balsain during a handling display at an agricultural exhibition. Allan Rodriguez was bitten on the inner thigh when a small specimen of the same species, which he was attempting to bag, swung back toward him. Catherine Sorzano, mistaking a Bothrops for a Boa, was bitten at least twice on her right forearm during her attempt to capture it. David Archer was bitten by a mapepire balsain high on the shin as he was walking bare-legged through the jungle of the Northern Range. The site of the bite, together with the other variables detailed, can often dictate the effect and final result of the snakebite. Although his hand was extremely swollen and there was some necrosis of the tissue (see fig. ), Chan recovered from his bite; he may have had some immunity from the numerous previous bites he had survived. Rodriguez suffered little effect from the bite he experienced, which was more of a scratch from the fangs. Archer spent several weeks in hospital suffering necrosis to the thin flesh covering the shin bone, and repair skin grafts had to be made to close the resultant large hole. Sorzano died  hours after being bitten, despite the best efforts of hospital staff in Port of Spain. Bites deep into parts of the body where there is a rich supply of blood and nerves tend to be more dangerous and to have serious and life-threatening results. George Reyes was bitten several times on the right forearm and wrist by a mapepire balsain that was probably trapped, squeezed, and enraged by the rough handling it was receiving when it was picked up along with a bundle of cut saplings within which it had been concealed. Bites of this sort from an alert and perhaps agitated snake will ensure the full dose of venom with every bite, the snake’s defensive and retaliatory strategy, in this case costing Reyes his life. The bite on Ralph Galera’s elbow (see Bothrops atrox account) was possibly from a small specimen of mapepire, as the fang punctures were only about  cm apart. A combination of the fleshy nature of Galera’s rather corpulent forearm and what must have been a flicking warning bite of the snake caused only some swelling to the arm. Bites on any part of the body, however, if accompanied by a full dose of venom, are a serious matter, the effects of which are experienced almost immediately and necessitate considerable medical attention. Once a full dose of venom has been delivered, the variables described come into play, influencing the overall effect to varying degrees. Variation in effects can lead to misunderstandings on the part of the victim and anyone treating the bite, whether this be a local bush doctor, obeah man, or hospital physician. As should by now be clear, due to many possible variables, there is seldom a “standard” response to a snakebite. In the unlikely event of the average person being

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bitten by a snake, expectations of the results run the gamut from likely death to relatively minimal discomfort and danger. A bite that does not appear serious may quickly prove lethal, as in cases when an unseen snake—especially a coral snake—or perhaps a scorpion bites or stings a person, and with little or no local damage or other symptoms, death occurs due to the virulent nature of the neurotoxin injected. Conversely, some bites from large, correctly identified crotalids like the mapepire zanana and mapepire balsain have little or no effect beyond the obvious punctures left at the site of the bite. This is the result of a dry bite and the source of much misunderstanding of the effects of an envenomating snakebite, including the wonder cures attributed to potions, concoctions, elixirs, prayers, incantations, and every other imaginable circumstance of human invention. In the case of a potentially envenomating snakebite, the victim often survives not because of treatment administered by a quack, or even by a legitimate practitioner, but in spite of the treatment, the human body having a remarkable capacity to withstand dreadful injuries and still survive and heal itself. Reid (:) states that “[T]he common symptom in human snake bite is fright and fear of rapid death. But the danger of poisonous snake bite in human victims has been greatly exaggerated: one-half of the people bitten by poisonous snakes such as cobras, vipers and sea snakes develop no significant poisoning (because little or no venom is injected). Serious poisoning is rare in man and death is highly exceptional—particularly if adequate medical treatment is received within a few hours of the bite” (emphasis in original; see also Reid :, ). Before addressing treatments of any kind—first aid, folk aid, magical aid, or hospital admission and administering of antivenin—it is necessary to consider the nature of the venom snakes can inject with a bite. It is important to reiterate that envenomation only occurs as the result of a bite. A snake cannot envenomate any creature with its breath, its tongue—often referred to locally as the “lance”— or its tail, which may have a sharp terminal spine. Nor can it fixate its prey with a hypnotic eye, a belief perpetuated in a large body of writings over the past three centuries. As we have seen, venom is manufactured by specialized salivary glands in the snake’s mouth. It is secreted by these glands into sacs and conducting tubes, bringing it either to openings near the teeth in the gum line, often toward the rear of the upper jaw, or to the fangs, which may be erectile or fixed at the front of the upper jaw, and it is then expelled by muscle contraction, down the fangs, either hollow or grooved, into the flesh of the victim.

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Venom Snake venom is secreted by glands that seem to have functioned originally to lubricate food during the swallowing process and that contained the usual digestive enzymes. Though it is suspected that injected venom may assist in digestion, prey eaten without having been previously envenomated is nevertheless completely and adequately digested. Poisonous snakes with their venom ducts surgically removed have been found to digest their food normally (Minton ). Minton (:) states that “no biological toxins equal snake venoms in biochemical and pharmacological complexity.” Nichol () lists the components and their effects: 1. Neurotoxins—affect the central nervous system 2. Hemorrhagins—break down the walls of veins and arteries 3. Thrombosins—make the blood clot 4. Hemolysins—destroy red blood cells 5. Cytolysins—destroy leucocytes (white blood cells) and other cells 6. Anticoagulants—prevent the normal clotting of blood 7. Antibacterial substances 8. Fermenting agents—assist in digesting food

The relative importance of these components varies. Coral snakes tend to have greater amounts of neurotoxins, hemolysins, and anticoagulants, whereas the mapepires tend to have hemorrhagins, thrombosins, and cytolysins. Both families have varying amounts of antibacterial substances and fermenting agents as well. To understand more fully how these many substances and their differing amounts affect a human victim, it may be useful to look at a more detailed analysis, based on Warrell (). A grasp of the workings on the human body of the medically important components of snake venom may assist in the treatment of snakebite by the reversal of their damaging effects. The components of venom fall into four broad categories. Enzymes—these remnants of the digestive component of the saliva are enzymes that activate blood coagulation, and phospholipase A, which breaks down cell membranes and acts as a poison blocking the electrical link between nerve cells Proteases—substances that damage tissue and cause necrosis or rotting of the flesh Polypeptide Toxins—also acting as nerve poisons, these substances interrupt the flow of nerve signals across the synapses in the nervous system Other Toxic Proteins—mainly these are hemorrhagins, which cause the breakdown of the outer layers of cell walls and cause systemic bleeding

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What this lethal cocktail does to human tissue when injected as a result of a full snakebite can be nothing short of horrendous. Descriptions in clinical language do little to convey the actualities of the many photographs on record; two from Trinidad are included here (see figs. , ).

Antidotes and Treatment According to Campbell and Lamar (:), “anti venom is the only proven treatment of envenoming (sometimes called envenomation).” Antivenom or antivenin is a serum prepared by injecting small amounts of snake venom into laboratory animals, mainly horses, which build up an immunity to the venom, developing antibodies in their blood. Plasma containing antibodies against snake venom, separated from the blood, is enzyme-refined, purified, and concentrated. Dried to a powder, the antivenin is rehydrated before injection into a snakebite victim. Some sera are prepared to combat a specific venom from one species of snake; there are some polyvalent antivenins that are designed to counter the effects of bites from several species, or even related genera, of snakes. In the case of bites from the neotropical rattlesnake Crotalus durissus, Campbell and Lamar () quote convincingly a death rate of  percent when antivenin is not administered, falling to  percent with its use. The success of treatment using antivenom or antivenin is of course dependent on several circumstances between the time that the victim is bitten and the time of admission to a facility where the correct and adequate antivenin can be administered. Though every imaginable recipe and method has been tried—and some unimaginable ones as well—to act as first aid or as a cure for snakebite, the most modern thinking on the subject of what to do if bitten is as follows (adapted from Campbell and Lamar ; Reid , ; White ). 1. Reassurance of the victim that death from a snakebite is not inevitable or rapid, that fear can only speed up the effects of envenomation, and that successful treatment is available should be stressed to calm the person and reduce fears. 2. Efforts to get the victim to a hospital where treatment can be started are of primary importance; this should be done as quickly as possible. 3. The bitten limb should be immobilized as much as is practical, using a splint or sling or tight compressing bandage after the removal of any possible constricting objects such as watches, rings, and bracelets. The patient should try to stay as quiet and immobile as possible. 4. Though there is a body of work advocating “cut and suction” as a first-aid method, and snakebite kits are available that include a lancet and several rubber suction cups, this procedure has also been proven to aid the absorption of venom

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into greater surface areas of raw flesh, exposed by cutting across fang punctures. 5. Aspirin and intramuscular injections may cause serious internal bleeding and thus should not be given. Painkillers such as acetaminophen and codeine phosphate are recommended. 6. As soon as is possible, an intravenous line should be established, and either normal saline or Ringers lactate should be started. 7. Upon arrival at a hospital, the attending physicians, assisted if possible by a positive identification of the snake that has bitten the victim, and guided by any gross presenting symptoms, should start the required treatment with either a specific or a polyvalent antivenin.

During the course of the development of symptoms of serious envenomation, and during transportation of the victim, the following may be observed. 1. Vomiting may occur, in which case the victim should be placed to lie on one side of the body, to avoid the involuntary inhalation of vomitus. 2. Neurotoxic envenomation may cause difficulty in breathing due to airway obstruction or paralysis of the tongue and jaw. An oral airway should be inserted to aid breathing, and in the case of respiratory or cardiac arrest, CPR should be performed. 3. Antivenin should be administered only in a hospital or medical facility by a physician who is familiar with its administration and who has the necessary emergency drugs and equipment available in the event of an adverse reaction to the antivenom serum. 4. Contrary to common belief, tight tourniquets to sites above the bite are not recommended as there is a risk of considerable tissue damage and, in many cases, gangrene. The tourniquet serves to isolate the comparatively small portion of the poisoned limb, promoting rapid absorption and “digestion” of tissues.

Russell (:, fig. -) warns against the careless use of tourniquets and supports this warning with a gruesome photograph of the result of a tourniquet left in place for nine days. Unfortunately this method of first aid is recommended in several recent publications available to the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who may venture into the haunts of the venomous snakes (ffrench and Bacon ,  rev. Quesnel; Kacal ). Though not referred to as a tourniquet, constricting bands are recommended for bites on extremities in the booklet Treatment of Poisonous Snake Bite issued by the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and Zoological Society of Cincinnati (Levy et al. n.d.). With the prompt administration of antivenin at a competent and experienced medical faculty, and with the follow-up treatment of any symptoms that naturally may follow, the death rate and possibly the extent of injury from snakebite

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can be considerably lessened. Delay in seeking proper treatment and application instead of a myriad of folk remedies are often responsible either for the death of the victim or for producing considerably more pain and more damage to the bite site, as well as perhaps for unseen systemic damage that may manifest itself as kidney or bladder complaints—as in the case of Clifford Chan of Maracas Valley. One snake man I encountered in Australia had lost his sense of taste due to the several bites of the mainly neurotoxic snakes he had handled.

Traditional Measures against Snakebite From the earliest times, people have sought to find an antidote, a magical solution to counter the devastating and sometimes fatal consequences of snakebite. These cures have taken several different forms. Objects or Talismans

The belief in the ability of an object, usually a stone of some kind, to counteract the effects of snakebite is not peculiar to Trinidad and Tobago but is widespread throughout the world. It is probably related to the belief that some precious gemstones have the power to overcome poisons. Not only jewels were thought to have this power but also gastroliths, stonelike calcium deposits found in the stomachs of some cows, horses, apes, llamas, and especially the Persian wild goat (Tichy ). Such stones were known as “bezoar” stones and were used mainly to counteract poisons in food and drink. They were popular throughout Europe in the Middle Ages and were also known in the Middle East and Far East. Similar to the bezoar, and even more precious for its ability to counteract poison, was the “toad-stone,” said to be found somewhere within the head of a toad, which is well known for having extremely venomous glands in its skin, especially the large parotid glands on both sides behind the head. One school of thought held that the toad was so venomous that it had to carry around its own built-in antidote. In actual practice, the toad stone was any stone of the size and shape of a toad, and it was considered able to draw out and neutralize poison by being placed on a sting or bite, and thus to “cure” the victim. These stones, made into rings and other jewelry, would also warn their owners when poison was near by heating up or sweating when in contact with the poison. Another type of stone, known as the “snake-stone,” was obtained from an East Indian snake—once again from the animal’s head—or among Native Americans was a snake-shaped stone. This was applied to the site of a sting or bite; it was reputed to stick there until its work was done and then to drop off. A great deal of sympathetic magic was obviously at work here.

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Fig. 50. Belgian black stone and pamphlet

The “mad-stone,” another kind of curative stone, was the standard treatment in North America and Europe in the mid-nineteenth century for bites by mad (rabid) dogs. These mad-stones, which were white, had the properties standard for subsequent kinds of curative stones. They were quite small, usually described as about the size of an almond, and were once placed on the bite, where they adhered until all the poison was drawn out, whereupon they fell off. To cleanse the stone and restore its powers, it was to be soaked in milk. These stones—the bezoar, toad-stone, snake-stone, and mad-stone—are the natural ancestors of “stones” believed to have curative or even magical qualities but manufactured out of animal horn or bone by a select group of people, or by one person, usually a holy man or priest. The secret of manufacture was passed on by a predecessor to someone who continued to manufacture this “stone” while preserving the secret of its making. These stones have been recorded in use against snakebite in India and in Mexico, where they are used as suction devices. In Mexico, they are made from deer horn. A small piece, again about the size of an almond, is wrapped in grass or hay and enclosed in a sheet of copper; the packet is placed in the coals of a fire until sufficient charring has occurred. Burnt bone, chalk, and vegetable substances were often also used to make these stones (Morris and Morris ). Snake-stones from India were exported all over the world and fetched exorbitant prices in South Africa and in North America. These stones, in all probabil-

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ity, originated in Manila, where they were manufactured by monks (Morris and Morris ). Another point of origin is suggested by Father Pinchon () who, quoting “le chevalier de Forbin,” relates that similar stones were fabricated as far back as  by the Chinese. Pinchon mistakenly refers to the stones originating from Trinidad as “pierre verte” (green stone) and adds that instead of the ordinary cleansing process being with water or milk, the final wash should be in “lait du femme” (mother’s milk). The good priest Pinchon has embellished his tale by changing the devilish black of the Belgian Black Stone to a more benign green and by stating that only the purest substance will magically restore its potency. Then again, the priest may have been repeating older beliefs that Fielding (:) claims are held by Italian peasants up to the present time, that serpentine pebbles—semiprecious stones that are usually green with streaks of white, giving a fancied resemblance to a serpent’s skin—are an effective snakebite cure. This background sets the stage for the presence and manufacture of a similar stone in Trinidad and for the belief, even today, in its efficacy against not only snakebite but against all bites and stings, and indeed other infections. In our insularity, we believe that in Trinidad we have a unique product, an almost magical cure for snakebite—the Belgian Black Stone. The belief of the Italian peasants is identical to that held in Trinidad for the Belgian Black Stone. Applied to the wound, the stone draws out the venom. In the early years of my interest in snakes and snakebite, I had heard stories told about the one sure antidote to snakebite, and though everyone seemed to know about the Belgian Black Stone, no one actually had one. It was always someone’s relative, a cousin or old uncle, who was supposed to have possessed one in an almost fairy tale–like “once upon a time.” My inquiries finally ran one to ground. Barbara Campbell (née Jardine) brought one to my office, complete with the original printed instructions and an unopened box of Gillette Blue razor blades, with which the required cuts through the fang punctures were to be made. I examined this mythical, magical piece of bonelike, stonelike material. It was again about the size of an almond (about  cm2), shiny and smooth, and slightly oily to the touch. It was rather lighter than I expected for either a stone or a piece of bone of similar size. I photographed these artifacts, mentally shaking my head both at the physical appearance of the object reputed to be able to extract “all the poison” and at the claims made in the enclosed pamphlet of instructions (see fig.  and appendix ). Back in , the cost of four dollars a box stated on the pamphlet was a small fortune at the time for the kind of people who might be exposed to snakebite—cocoa plantation laborers, small farmers, or the inhabitants of the forested mountains. It was reported in the Trinidad Guardian (c) that Alfred Joseph, from the town of Arima, had been bitten on an estate in Maracas by a “mapipeire” snake,

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and had become seriously ill, but recovered fully when the overseer of the estate applied “a healing stone.” So full was the recovery that no other medical help was sought. The report continues that a Filette Point man, similarly bitten, died. It is not stated whether a healing stone was applied, but the inference is that had he been treated with one, as Mr. Joseph had been, he would not have suffered the fate of death by snakebite. In the same report a reason why the snake bit Joseph was given: “Hunters advanced the theory that the reptile was attracted to the stick [a crook-stick that Joseph had forgotten and returned to retrieve] by the smell of human perspiration on it and it remained there awaiting a prey.” Enduring tales and superstitions can follow a people wherever they may be transplanted. Wieck () describes a tale told to him about how a witch doctor from West Africa used a poisonous snake to murder someone. The snake was imprisoned without food in a box with the clothes of the intended victim, and when the snake had associated its hunger with the smell of the owner of the clothes, it was released near the compound where the intended victim lived. The snake would unerringly seek out its perceived tormentor by smell and “imparts a lethal bite in its fury at being starved so long.” What imagined wrong could the snake that bit Mr. Joseph have had against him, except perhaps in a mythical and mystical sense? Perhaps the snake was only taking revenge for all the other snakes thoughtlessly slaughtered while Joseph was cutlassing the estates with the tools of his trade—the “swiper” cutlass and crook-stick. Belief in the power of the Belgian Black Stone persists to this day. In Scientific Sorties, de Verteuil () has a chapter about this stone, replete with much subjective analysis, colored by the belief and faith of the author, a Roman Catholic priest. The stone is imbued with much power, based on mainly anecdotal accounts, not only as a cure for snakebite but as an antidote to septic wounds, as the agent for the removal of needles and surgical thread from the flesh, and as a cure for tiger-cat bites, neuralgia, ulcers, precancerous nose pimples, swollen legs, abscesses, centipede bites, scorpion fish stings, and wasp and scorpion stings (in both humans and horses). It is unfortunate that many of the myths, especially concerning snakebite, have been perpetuated here. If read and believed, such misinformation could be extremely detrimental to anyone seriously bitten who trusts in the complete curative powers of the Belgian Black Stone rather than seeking competent medical attention, though de Verteuil does hedge his bets by recommending that the Black Stone should be used in conjunction with medical attention. The Trinidad version of the snake-stone is called the Belgian Black Stone because it was manufactured by a Belgian Roman Catholic priest, Dom Ambrose Vinckier, who headed the mission situated where the monastery of Mount St.

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Benedict now stands. The Indians of Brazil, from whom one Dom Mayeul is reputed to have received the secret of the stone’s manufacture before passing it on to Dom Ambrose, used the horns of deer, as for the snake-stones made in Mexico. That Don Ambrose was reduced to the manufacture of snake-stones from the shin bones of cows (de Verteuil ) points to the shortage of deer horn in Trinidad. The annually shed horns of the single Trinidadian species of deer, Mazama americana, also known as biche, are in great demand for magical and aphrodisiacal use. Where the priests of Manila, predating Dom Ambrose in their manufacture and sale of snake-stones, got the “secret” of their manufacture is not recorded. But the association of such stones with religious orders, the secrecy of their manufacture, their almost magical attributes in “curing” the often mysterious and devastating results of snakebite—all enabling the stones to be highly prized and priced—has always been beneficial financially to the manufacturer and seller. One has to wonder why, if a product is so effective a cure for relieving the pain and suffering of humanity from such a myriad of afflictions, it is in such short supply, and why these religious orders hold such secrets so close to their breasts and charge such exorbitant prices for these “life-saving” amulets. The secret of the Trinidadian Belgian Black Stone has now been published for all to learn and to manufacture, if they are so minded. Several interesting points emerge from the details of manufacture finally revealed in Scientific Sorties (de Verteuil :–). The slow burning of the bone is similar to the manufacture of activated charcoal, which is well known as an antidote to poisons that are taken internally; the burning process converts the bone into a form of activated charcoal, with its known absorptive powers. But this is not effective on poisons injected into the flesh (Tichy ), unless it is preceded by an injection of finely powdered activated charcoal into the flesh or site of subsequent injection of venom or toxin (Barbour ), a highly unlikely occurrence in the case of any unplanned snakebite. The burning does, however, increase the absorptive power of the bone. One report, as indicative of special properties, is that the Belgian Black Stone peeled off the outer layer of skin from the lip of one Sister Ida, who, having learned the secret of its manufacture, was testing it out. This phenomenon is well known to anyone who has put a slip of paper between the lips and had the tender inner lip torn when the adherent paper was pulled away; there is nothing unusual or magical on the part of the dry, porous Belgian Black Stone. According to believers, the Belgian Black Stone “works.” It does not matter how. It just works. The fact that the supposed victim may not actually have been envenomated is not considered a factor in the perceived efficacy of the treatment. Belief in the Belgian Black Stone has been extended in some cases to any stone. A small, slatelike, dark stone from a nearby river was tied to the bite of George

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Reyes. This did not save his life, although it would be argued that that was because it was not a true Belgian Black Stone. Failures of a “true” stone are never recorded or spoken of, as these are failures of the person’s faith in the stone as well. Success, after the stone has appeared to work, is much better propaganda, for both the stone and the continued faith in it. Adoption of the stone by missionary priests and its use in Africa, contrary to some reports, has had less than encouraging results. Father John Boos, stationed in Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta), regularly used Belgian Black Stones on people bitten by African venomous snakes: the Gaboon viper Bitis arietans, the horned viper Cerastes cerastes, and the cobra Naja haje. When asked why he put his faith and trust in such a questionable treatment, his reply was that, stationed where he was in a remote area, he had no other treatment available, and in spite of the frequent rate of failure, he had no other alternative. (There is indeed a possibility that if fear contributes to the damaging or fatal effects of a bite, a “magic” stone applied to a believer may be psychologically calming, thereby alleviating snakebite effects.) The Hausa people of West Africa have been observed to respond positively to a placebo treatment due to the reduction of anxiety, and this “cure” is enhanced by the usually low incidence of mortality as a result of snakebite (when the bitten person truly believes that all snakes are poisonous and death-dealing); and it certainly enhances the reputation of the remedy and of the local therapist (Lewis Wall :). Analysis by Wilkes of the Belgian Black Stone revealed that the “stone” was in fact charcoal of animal bone with an absorptive power of . percent of its own weight. Netting and Wilkes () noted that though this absorptive quality may have had some use in soaking up blood and poison from a previously incised wound, this would be of little use in combating the bites of the Trinidad crotalids, and use of the stone would be harmful in delaying more efficacious treatment. Morris and Morris () are more brutal in their assessment of the usefulness of snake-stones. “Tested experimentally, snake-stones proved valueless,” was their terse comment. Another published instruction concerning use of the Belgian Black Stone (de Verteuil ) is that, especially in the case of snakebite, a victim, once treated, should not be allowed to lie down but must be kept moving for two or three hours. However, the experience of hospitals and doctors has led them to recommend calmness and immobility for the victim. Activity or movement of any kind obviously assists the more rapid circulation of the blood and consequently the spread of the venom throughout the body. At best, all the Belgian Black Stone can accomplish is perhaps the calming and reassurance of the snakebite victim until competent and proven remedies can be implemented in a hospital. To trust entirely the stone’s reputed magical cure is to court disaster. De Verteuil’s () revelations have gone unnoticed, at

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least to the extent that Louis B. Homer () inquired in a newspaper article what ever happened to the Belgian Black Stone. Evidently it has begun to pass from currency into the realm of legend, where it deservedly belongs. In Guyana the snake nut, Ophiocaryon paradoxum, is considered a charm against snakebite (Encyclopedia Britannica ). All other objects or reputed talismans that are believed either to ward off snakes or to cure snakebite belong in the realm of superstition; their only value may be for their placebo effect on the snakebite victim. Medicinal Plants

For perspective on the role of plants, it is useful to quote from Morris and Morris (:): “So many different kinds of plants have been recommended for the treatment of snake bite it would seem that to qualify as an antidote, a plant has only to be readily available when required.” This would seem to apply widely in the western hemisphere and certainly in Trinidad. It must be kept in mind that Trinidad is inhabited by a multitude of different peoples, from a multitude of different backgrounds, countries, and cultures, and thus there is today a mixture of transplanted beliefs and locally adapted herbal “cures” for snakebite. The accounts of plants reputed to have a curative effect on snakebite are so numerous as to beg the question of the plants’ efficacy. If the cures were what they are supposed to be, why have they not been recognized, developed, perhaps synthesized, like other efficacious drugs and medicines derived from plants, and been made available in countries where snakebite is a significant contributor to human death? As far back as , it was recorded that at least  plants were effective as antidotes; however, testing has revealed that “plants were shown to have no remedial value in cases of snake poisoning” (Morris and Morris :). Minton and Minton (:) hold that “it is just possible that among the thousands of folk remedies for snake bite is an undiscovered substance or mixture of substances that is more effective than anything now in use, but the odds are against it.” It is therefore not surprising that in Trinidad, both in written history and in oral folklore, many plants are believed to be or to contribute to cures for snakebite. As already mentioned, there has been considerable movement of people, and thus of their beliefs and cultures, throughout the Caribbean in the last five hundred years. Even the indigenous peoples, the Caribs and Arawaks, were transplants from Central and South America. Wherever people settled or visited, and wherever there were venomous snakes, incidents of snakebite were sure to occur and cures were sought to reverse their consequences. The early visitors, coming mainly from Europe, would have sought local remedies for the bites of local species—cures which naturally would have been known

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to and recommended by the native inhabitants. One such cure is related by Capt. James Burnley (): Lussan relates that two of the buccaneers were bitten by serpents at Quibo. He says, “Here are serpents whose bite is so venomous that speedy death inevitably ensues, unless the patient can have immediate recourse to a certain fruit, which must be chewed and applied to the part bitten. The tree which bears this fruit grows here and in other parts of America. It resembles the almond tree in France in height and in its leaves. The fruit is like the sea chestnut (Chataines de Mer) but is of a grey colour, rather bitter in taste, and contains in its middle a whitish almond. The whole is to be chewed together before it is applied. It is called (Graine à serpent) the ‘Serpent berry.’”

This account presents several points that need clarification, for at best only the bare bones of locality, species of snake, and identity of cure are described. First, the island of Quibo, or Quicaro or Cobaya (Dampier , in Wycherley ), used by the buccaneers in the seventeenth century and lying southwest of Panama in the Golfo de Chiriqui, is now called Coiba Island. Second, the only venomous snake found today on Coiba Island is a coral snake, Micrurus nigrocinctus coibensis (Campbell and Lamar ), which supposedly could account for the rapid death of the two buccaneers who were bitten. Third, the “serpent berry,” from the brief description, is more than likely the country-almond, also called the tropical or Indian almond, Terminalia catappa, which is pantropical in its distribution, including the Caribbean islands, and is common on the beaches of Trinidad (Gunn and Dennis ). However, its reputed efficacy against snakebite has not come down to us today in the current list of plants, which it should have if the plant offered a cure for the lethal bite of a coral snake and was used by the buccaneers. They certainly used Trinidad and Tobago as a hideout (Bryans ) and for revictualing their ships during the mid-eighteenth century, and two deadly coral snakes, M. lemniscatus diutius and M. circinalis, are found there. The presence of coral snakes on Trinidad was well known to local inhabitants in the middle and late eighteenth century—so well known that Roume de St. Laurent () felt impelled to record the deadliness of these snakes in his report on Trinidad. One of the earliest references in Trinidad to cures for snakebite is in de Verteuil (:). He recorded as cures “guaco”—identified by Ewen () as Mikania guaco, and the roots of the “manaco palm” (Euterpe sp., manac palm). De Verteuil was no doubt reporting on a popular belief of the day, as there was an even earlier report (Public Records Office ) that the expressed juice of the guaco, given externally, was a cure for snakebite. Ewen (), however, recorded that the required method for use of the antidote involved inoculation of the body in six

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places with the dried and powdered plant and taking three tablespoons per day of the expressed juice for nine days. This method is recorded for another species of guaco, M. micrantha, called bitter tally in Guyana (Latchman-White et al. ). Mikania guaco was apparently widely recognized as an antidote for snakebite, for it was reported in use (Schomburgk :) “throughout almost the whole of South America, particularly in Peru and Chile” but “was quite unknown among the Indians of Guiana.” Ewen () also recorded that the secua nut, Fevilla cordiflora, when grated and mixed with old rum or brandy, was an effective antidote to snakebite in addition to having many other incredible attributes—from preserving steel against rust to combating poisons used in obeah. Indicative of how many connections there are throughout the West Indies, and in some cases with the mainland of South America, are the other cures or remedies for bites from snakes similar or identical to ones from Trinidad. In the Antilles, where there are poisonous snakes only on the islands of St. Lucia and Martinique, it is recorded that Aristolochia trilobata, a vine growing from a potato-like rhizome, is used against snakebite as a tea or poultice (Honychurch ). In the Island of St Lucia it was recorded (Richards  in Russell :) that the “panseurs” or snake doctors there had used their concoction on  patients, with only two deaths, these due to the pit viper Bothrops caribbeaus. The ingredients (listed in table ) are some that were used in the concoction, and possible identifications are given (Honychurch ; Lampe and Cann ; Adams et al. ). The instructions were to combine and pound the ingredients in a mortar with alkali and laudanum and to add the mixture to strong spirits, to be taken internally and applied externally to the wound. It is interesting to note that the French patois name in Trinidad for Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti is machete couesse or couresse (see table ). In Guyana, where there are considerably more species of poisonous snakes than in the Antilles or Trinidad, including rattlesnakes, there is, as should be expected, a proportionately larger list of plants (table ) recommended for use as antidotes to snakebite (Latchman-White et al. ) As a snakebite antidote, the species of Aristolochia are mentioned time and time again (Boos ; Morean b; Seaforth ). Even the common name used in North America for A. reticulata and A. serpentaria, snakeroot (Stark ; Spoerke ), maintains its association with matters serpentine. All the plants in this genus—including A. indica, the Indian birthwort, and A. rugosa and A. trilobata from Trinidad—are also alleged to be used in the treatment of menstrual problems and as an abortifacient (Stark ; Boos ). A. rugosa—mat root— is often an ingredient of mixtures that are reputed to be antidotes, a subject addressed in the following section; however, it is recommended by Morean (b) that a piece of the root can be chewed and swallowed as an emergency measure

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Table 2. Plants Used as Antidotes to Snakebite, St. Lucia Richards 1885 Zeb giante Zeb a couresse Zeb dahi Zeb a colete Chadron beni Soumatie Zimeron Treffe Charhentier Zebe astro Jarpanyai Balier doux

Honeychurch 1986 ? (Z’Herbe couresse) ? ? (Chadon ben[ee]i) ? ? Tref, trefle Chamber bitter (poss.) (Star grass [poss.]) (Star potato vine [poss.]) Japanne, japona Sweet liane (?)

Lampe and Cann 1985 ? Peperomia pellucida ? ? Eryngium foetidum ? ? Aristolochia trilobata Phyllanthus sp. Rhynchospora nervosa Solanum sp. Eupatorium triplinerve Merrimia sp.

Table 3. Plants Used as Antidotes to Snakebite, Guyana  

 



Bat seed, karako Hicha, huria

Andira inermis Brysonima coriacea var. spicata Cissus verticillata

Inner bark scraped and used Decoction of bark (rattlesnake)

Snake bitters, tongue vine Aromata Tetiruma Couba, kanta-balli Black-hiari, wakuru kudu Bitter-tally Koro-bally, trysil

Kikuri-bianda

Crushed leaves applied externally Clathrotropis brachypetala Infusion of bark Clusia fockeana Exudate of stem applied externally Licania alba (L. venosa) Decoction of bark drink Lonchocarpus chrysophyllus Bark (Bothrops) Mikania micrantha Infusion of young leaves Pentachlethra macroloba Decoction of bark, rum, garlic (Allium sativum), and gunpowder applied as a poultice after washing with a bark decoction Simaba cedron Infusion of bark and seeds

: Extracted and condensed from Latchman-White et al. ()

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Table 4. Plants Used as Antidotes to Snakebite, Trinidad  

 



Wild ochro

Abelmoschus moschatus Aristolochia rugosa

Aqueous and rum infusion of seeds Roots and leaves chewed for snake bite. Root-tea infusion Leaf decoction Juice of bark and roots Freshly cut tuber on bite Tea of rhizome or fruit

Mat root Tref Bois cano Cassava Creole or balisier fig Refriyan* (contra-yerva root) Lyan tasso Rei de parel * (devil pepper?) Toshon Waku, lyanwak (guaco) Tural (bow-string hemp)*

Aristolochia trilobata Cecropia peltata Manihot esculenta Musa paradisiaca var. sapientum Dorstenia contrajerva

Tea of rhizome

Bauhinia excisa Rauvolfia hirsuta**

Vine decoction Infusion or decoction of root

Luffa operculata

Aqueous or puncheon rum infusion of seeds and fruit fiber Leaf poultice

Mikania micrantha var. congesta Sansiveria thyrsiflora

Leaf-juice drink

Source: Extracted and condensed from Latchman-White et al. () * Williams and Williams (1941) ** Rauwolfia serpentina, snake root, antidote for snakebite (Spoerke )

against scorpion stings and snakebite. Likewise he recommends chewing of the rhizome of the plant he calls contrayerva—Dorstenia contrayerva—as an emergency agent against snakebite, or the entire plant, crushed, can be used as a poultice (Morean a). The self-styled Shaman, Cristo Glen Adonis of the modern Caribs in Arima (st Century Carib ), recommends use of tref, A. trilobata, combined with unspecified caterpillars (but usually the larvae of the butterflies Battus polydamus, Parides neophilus, or P. anchises, which feed on Aristolochia leaves; Boos ), “a scorpion or centipede,” and a “bachac snake” (usually the legless lizard, Amphisbaena fuliginosa or A. alba) soaked in rum, to be imbibed as an antidote to snakebite. The juice of the bark and roots of bois cano, Cecropia peltata, also called “snake wood” by Seaforth (), is taken for snakebite and scorpion stings. Another reputed cure comes from the small tree called roi de mapepire

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(Tabernaemontana undulata); an infusion of its roots is said to be effective (Quesnel ), though one might bear in mind the indication that this same decoction of the roots will drive the person drinking it insane (Morean ). This root is called dandy-root in Tobago, and in Trinidad it is known as bwendel, prendel, and mapepire root. The efficacy of the herbs and trees mentioned is no doubt fiercely defended by persons who have used them—none more fiercely than Dixon Capriata’s defense for the bark of a vine that incidentally resembles the tortuous twisting of a snake. Capriata claimed to me that he always carried a small portion of this bark in his pocket whenever he went into the bush; he had used it to “cure” Ivan T. Sanderson of a serious scorpion sting (Sanderson :). Capriata also prepares a decoction of this vine, which he refers to as “venom” and which he claims is the best cure not only for snakebite but for all types of poisoning (see later discussion). Capriata guards the scientific identity of this vine closely as a deep secret, as is usual with bush-medicine practitioners—if in fact he knows what it really is or can locate a fresh supply in the forest, where there are several lianas that have stems and roots are almost indistinguishable one from another. One herbalist, with a formal botanical background, claimed that this was the root of Chiococca alba, though Capriata had claimed it was the above-ground stem of his vine. Another herbalist was not certain that Chiococca roots or stems grew to the proportions that had been shown to me by Capriata. Mayok chapelle, Entada polystachya, a large woody climbing vine, has been one of the candidates suggested for Capriata’s vine. Scrapings of the root bark have been recorded (Wong ) as being used for treating venereal diseases. The fleshy underground roots of another vine, the cat’s claw or shower of gold, are reputed to be part of one of the mixtures, the contraveneno, used by bush men and hunters to cure snakebite and scorpion stings (Morean ). Another group of plants, the Araceae, has contributed material—supposedly in both a magical and a physical manner—to the folk medicines used as antidotes to snakebite. In Guyana, the wild-growing Caladium bicolor is considered by local Indians to be a charm or “beena” and is used to ward off evil or to “command” the attentions of other persons, and to assist in almost all of life’s activities (Rodway ). In Trinidad, such beenas are known as “turales” (Moodie-Kublalsingh ), and the knowledge of their identity and use seems relict in the agricultural districts populated by the Cocoa Panyols, descendants of immigrants from Venezuela. Here the Caladium bicolor is known as ocumo. Capriata was extremely cagey about Caladium bicolor when I remarked on it growing near his front gate. He called it a name but refused to repeat this when asked. It is possible that the corms of this plant are used in one of the concoctions made up as a draft against snakebite. Caladium bicolor is apparently widely used by native South American Indi-

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ans as an anti-snakebite remedy, for Lewis and colleagues (, in Croat ) reported that the boiled stems are eaten for treating snakebite. The family Araceae seems to abound with species that at one time or another, and in widely spread locations, have been used and are probably still used as a snakebite remedy among the native peoples of South and Central America. Many of the genera and species of these plants used on the mainland are also found on Trinidad and Tobago, though due to the almost complete extirpation of the original island native people, their knowledge and the practice of snakebite treatment has all but been lost. Croat () records widespread use on the other West Indian Islands as well as on the mainland of a suite of species also found on Trinidad. The crushed roots of Anthurium gracile are used as a poultice, the juice is imbibed as an antidote, and a decoction or “tea” made from the leaves of A. scandens is used to bathe the snakebite wound. A small amount is consumed as well Diffenbachia seguine, or dumb cane, used indoors to decorate many homes and offices, is reported to be used in Martinique as an ingredient in the antidote against the bite of the pit viper there, Bothrops lanceolatus (Stehle and Stehle ), and in a poultice for bites of poisonous animals in Guatemala (Aguilar-Giron ). The little-known “chicken-foot bhagi,” Xanthosoma helleborifolium, is used from El Salvador to the Guianas and Amazonian Peru, in conjunction with other leaves, as a poultice to massage snakebites, and the boiled tuber’s liquid is consumed as well as a cure. Among the several recipes for contraveneno, snakebite remedies, there seem to be two main ones, as described by Moodie-Kublalsingh (). The first consists of a mixture of some earth from a bachac nest (the nest of the parasol ant, Atta cephalotes), and the following herbs, steeped in rum: roots of rey de cuesa, Bactris major, a spiny palm; roots of rey de cuicuisa (or lang bef), Rumex crispus, an agave; jouillo (sandbox), Hura crepitans; secua, Fevilla cordiflora; obie seed, Cola acuminata, the kola nut; and rey de café, Coffea sp. The other mixture contains mapurite (gully root), Petiveria alliaceae; ruda (rue), Ruta graveolens; rey de mato (mat root), Aristolochia rugosa; and juan de la calle, Vernouia cinereae. These are also steeped in rum, and are used as a cure for stings and bites of scorpions and snakes. However, the identities given for the plants involved may be in question, for the same common names are often given to several plant species. Species of the aroid Dracontium are used widely throughout South and Central America and are even collected and cultivated by some tribes of native people, in some cases as part of their preventative planning for the inevitable snakebites and other poisonous stings to be expected in daily life in the jungles where they live (King ). Roots and petioles are crushed with sugar and alcohol for consumption, a little at a time, for short intervals, and the pulp is placed on the wound. The base of the tuber or the pulp from the split petioles is applied to the wound or the ground-up tuber is applied as a paste. The leaves, too, are consid-

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ered an antidote and are rubbed on the wound. Sometimes the tuber paste is wrapped in Caladium leaves and strapped on the wound as a plaster or poultice. The genus Dracontium turns up again as an antidote in Costa Rica, where D. pittieri is used by Bribri Indians (Morton ). An infusion of the leaves is used both internally and externally as an antidote to the bite of the tree pit viper, the boca-raca, which Campbell and Lamar (:) identify as Bothroechis schlegelii. Local people believe that the snake gets its poison from eating the leaves of the plant. Use of Dracontium dubium was reported as long ago as ; its efficacy as an antidote was attributed to Nature giving the necessary clue to its use by its outer appearance (Schomburgk ). The principle whereby one object, because of its resemblance to another, has some connection to or effect upon the other, is referred to as sympathetic magic. Thus, the fact that the stem of Dracontium foecundum (= D. asperum) has a distinctly snakelike appearance (resembling Bothrops) gives it an added “advantage” for the treatment of the evil and danger its look-alike poses. In Guyana, this plant is a specific charm or beena for the repelling of or protection from snakes (Rodway ), and D. dubium is used as a specific antidote for snake and spider bites (Levi-Strauss :). In Trinidad, where this plant is referred to as the mapepire plant or snake tannia, its large corm is possibly used in the antidote called “Old Man” (described later) prepared by the herbalist Eduardo “Placid” Manson, from Loango Village high up in the Maracas–St. Joseph Valley (Lee , ). The last of these aroids that may once have been used as an antidote, and may still be secretly regarded and used as one, is not an indigenous plant but one native to Sri Lanka, parts of eastern India, and Bangladesh (Nicholson and Sivadasan ); it is found only in widely scattered enclaves in Trinidad. Boos and Boos (), in correspondence with Sivadasan, learned that in India the leaves and corms of Typhonium trilobatum were used as an antidote to snakebite, and according to Chopra et al. (), T. trilobatum roots are used in Indian traditional medicine in teas for stomach complaints and to be applied externally for snakebite. Boos and Boos () speculate that corms were imported by authorities in Trinidad around the middle of the nineteenth century, to assuage the fears of the newly arrived indentured Indian labor force that began arriving in Trinidad in , and to offer a snakebite treatment. That this was a possibility is contained in a statement by Mayo () that the specimens of this plant collected earliest from Trinidad were recorded in , and that the species was an “escapee from cultivation.” One is left to speculate as to the rationale behind the “cultivation” of this small, comparatively insignificant alien plant at the site of the St. Clair Experimental Station in Port of Spain; even today these plants can be gathered along the grass verges and empty overgrown lots of land near where the station was located but only in sparse, scattered locations elsewhere.

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Although the Araceae family has been widely used by native peoples to treat a large number of ailments, including snakebite, Croat (:) also notes that “few of the aroids are clinically proven medicinal plants and most of the information that has accumulated is of an anecdotal nature.” What is known clinically, though the family is poorly known chemically, is that the substances contained in these plants tend to be harmful and at times extremely toxic. Some beneficial aspects of their use, however, may derive from the nature of the tannins present as astringents and to assist in the sealing over of wounds; and from the raphides of calcium oxalate, to control inflammation temporarily and to stimulate blood and lymph circulation, thus speeding the excretion of toxins (Croat ; Bown ). In Trinidad and Tobago, much of this traditional use has possibly been lost due to the loss, over time, of the indigenous peoples and their culture. Findlay Russell () reported an estimated , snakebites a year from all species, , being caused by venomous snakes. Taking into consideration other unreported or untreated bites from venomous species, he concluded that “, bites per year seems reasonable.” These were numbers for the United States, where deaths per year averaged between nine and  persons. For other countries Russell gave the following approximate annual figures: Mexico ,+, deaths ; Central America ,–,; Brazil ,, with  deaths out of , cases seen by the Instituto Butantan over a -year period, –. It is also useful to consider the statistics of snake envenomation from countries that have numerous snakes, snakebite occurrences, and fatalities. Russell reports that in the orient, on Amami Oshima, between  and , there were , bites from one genus (Trimeresurus) alone. Not far away, on Okinawa, from  to , there were , bites from the same genus. On Taiwan, over a two-year period,  to ,  deaths occurred. In the Philippines,  died from cobra bites in one year, . Thailand, in , reported , bites and  deaths, and, in a two-year period ( and ), , cases of snakebite were recorded More rounded figures for the world are given by White (), who suggests an estimated annual mortality of between , and , from snakebites in South America, with a figure of between , and , deaths a year throughout the world. These deaths are of course only a percentage of the people who were bitten and envenomated. To put all that has gone before in perspective: if all the herbs and poultices, drinks, and concoctions utilized by native peoples were in fact antidotes to snakebite, effective for a victim truly envenomated, we might expect that the reported snakebite mortality rates all over the world would be far lower. But that troubling question may never be satisfactorily settled for those who place their trust in roots, drinks, or magic. We can never know how many people died, of those bitten, in

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the centuries before statistics were kept regarding victims who were treated and recovered or who died despite treatment. All we have of those years are the traditions and legends that certain plants from the bewildering array in the pharmaceutical bag of the shaman or wise woman may relieve pain and suffering. Even in the years for which statistics have been maintained, numbers are far from definite. If in fact some of the folk-remedies do work, the number of snakebites may be double the number reported and treated by modern procedures in medical centers, hospitals, and doctors’ offices. But if the plant cures work, why have the plants not yielded their secrets when investigated and analyzed in search of a panacea against an agent that kills so many people every year? If they worked, knowledge of their capacity to relieve suffering would spread like wildfire and, like Penicillin and other discoveries, they would be in general use worldwide. Much has been learned about how to treat snakebite, and this knowledge is applied in modern medical settings. Yet the intricate nature of snake venom and the complex and varying effects of bites are far from having been fully unraveled by science; the mysteries that remain contribute to both the continuing search for understanding and the continuing life of legends about and hopes for plant remedies. In spite of all that is known, some people persist in the belief that folk cures work, and that someday some property may be discovered or revealed that will unlock a treasure trove of herbal healing for snake envenomation. This resolution would be greatly welcomed by the people researching the epidemiology of envenomation, who have so far have found precious little evidence supporting the cures claimed. Prepared Elixirs and Drinks

There is an old adage that to cure what ails one, a dose of the “hair of the dog that bit you” will do the trick. Thus, for a hangover, a strong drink is recommended. Carried over into the cures for snakebite, in addition to the traditional use of alcohol as an antidote, parts of the snake—the head or the horny tail or “sting”—are steeped in rum. This is an ancient practice dating back to Aristotle, Nicander, and Pliny (Russell :). Horrific as such a mixture may seem, a snakebite victim may see it as a lesser and necessary evil compared to the death thought to be inevitable. A belief that local concoctions can protect the person who imbibes them, or uses them, is similar to the powerful and pervading belief in certain parts of Africa, especially among the Hausa people, where the medicine known as “meganin maciji” is used not so much to cure snakebite but rather to toughen the skin and make it impervious to fang punctures or to drive the snakes away from the intended victim. These medicines are highly valued as the Hausa regard all snakes as poisonous, much as applies among the majority of Trinidadians and Tobagonians;

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the medicine known as “meganin karfe” is especially powerful in increasing a person’s immunity and protecting the body from wounds or penetration by any object that could cause wounds or sickness, especially the fangs of snakes and their attendant venom (Lewis Wall :). Some of this sympathetic magic, whereby part of the offending animal is used as an ingredient in the cure, can be traced to the Hausa of West Africa, where due to the fact that the thorns of the Acacia senegal trees resemble the fangs of a snake, these thorns are ingredients in a number of snakebite remedies (Lewis Wall :) Alcohol in great quantities is a traditional drink used to combat snakebite (Morris and Morris ); legion are the tales of cures attempted by forcing victims to continue drinking until they are dead drunk or dead. However, alcohol is not recommended, as it facilitates the blood circulation and speeds the spread and absorption of any venom that has been injected. To the dry bite victim, of course, the cure is successful, except for the danger of alcohol poisoning or at least a terrible hangover after sobering up. Commercially prepared elixirs are also used. There may be no mystery in deciphering the contents of Scrubb’s Ammonia—though it is not clear whether it is to be used externally or internally. But the contents of Sir John Power’s Three Swallows, Contraveneno (Hummingbird in Trinidad Guardian ), or Osborn’s Paynquila (Verbum Sap ), or of Melidor’s Antidote to Snake-bite (Mole b) may forever remain unknown. The people who prepare such elixirs guard the secrets of their contents with great fervor. Drinking muddy water is another traditional remedy, which has roots in North America, where one of the staples for curing snakebite was “swamp-water” (Russell :) Envenomation by a snake or scorpion is often confused with poisoning from the ingestion of a deadly or corrosive substance, the latter possibly being soothed by the drinking of cool muddy water and by the vomiting which is thus induced, to empty the stomach of its deadly contents. Morris and Morris () reported that mud was placed on a patient’s eyes and abdomen after a snakebite in India, though in Trinidad we have gone one step further. The folklorist Pavy () recommends “first aid for snake and poison sting and for one who drinks poison; get victim to drink mud water.” Local stories such as the following support belief in the efficacy of drinking muddy water as an antidote. Near Cedros, in the southwestern peninsula area of Trinidad, a coconut picker had climbed up one of the taller trees that are characteristic of the area. As he began to pull himself up into the crown of the palm, a snake struck at him, biting him in the face. The snake most likely to be found living in the crown of a coconut palm tree, approximately  meters off the ground, would be the nonvenomous cascabel dormillon, the tree boa. Disturbed from its daily sleeping ball by the shaking and trembling of the tree as the climber

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inched ever higher up the curved bow of the trunk, the snake must have been waiting for him as his head and shoulders emerged between the lower stems of the leaves, and then bit him. However, to the picker, all snake were poisonous; involuntarily he let go his grip and began to fall. Fortunately, he fell onto the curved trunk of the tree below him, and managed to wrap arms and legs around it in a desperate hug. He then slid the remaining distance to the bottom of the tree, where he landed scraped and bruised but glad to be alive. But only for a while, he reckoned, for he had seen the snake only seconds after he had been bitten, as it withdrew from its blind daytime strike. He felt his face and saw blood on his hand from the lacerations on his nose and cheeks. In his own words, he gives his “proof ” of the belief: “Bossman, I know I is a dead man. But ah see a hole where hog-cattle [water buffalo] does bathe, an ah rush to the water in it an ah drink. I ent tell you I want to drink, but I had to drink, so ah drink an ah drink. Oh God boss! Den ah vomit, an ah drink again, an ah vomit again. An you know, it work. I ent dead!” But the drinking muddy water did not assist George Reyes, who died after being seriously bitten by a mapepire balsain in the Paria forest (see Bothrops atrox species account). Then there is pitch oil and/or kerosene. How the concept of drinking such liquids came about I have been unable to discover. “Pitch oil” was the name given to the first distillate from the raw pitch mined from the Pitch Lake in La Brea, a large deposit of natural asphalt. This distillate was a primitive form of kerosene, and even today in Trinidad and Tobago kerosene is referred to as pitch oil (de Verteuil ). Apparently, the belief in the efficacy of drinking kerosene is not confined to Trinidad and Tobago. Archie Carr was bitten on his leg by a Bothrops while working at a remote field station in Costa Rica; he declined an offered drink of kerosene from a neighbor (Minton and Minton ). What the effect of drinking a petroleum distillate would have been on Carr will never be known, but such a drink (pitch oil or lamp oil), given to and supposedly accepted by George Reyes after he was bitten (see Bothrops atrox species account) certainly did not save his life and may have complicated matters by the time he was finally admitted many hours later to the Port of Spain General Hospital, where he died. Then there are the other elixirs—the concoctions made up by herbalists and folk medicine purveyors, all claimed to be the antidote to cure snakebite and many other ailments, each one with secret ingredients known only to the bush alchemist who has gathered the herbs, roots, vines, leaves, seeds, and sometimes animals parts and cooked up a special mixture to be sold to the bitten, the unbitten, the poisoned and unpoisoned, at an exorbitant price. As earlier noted, one such recipe and cure was made by Eduardo “Placid” Manson, who called it Old Man. I went to visit him a couple of years before he died and he brought some out to show me, in a small flat rum bottle. The flask was stuffed with leaves floating in a clear yellowish liquid, and I could discern

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what looked like a piece of reptile skin among the leaves. Asked what it was, Manson told me it was “matte skin,” from the matte lizard or tegu, Tupinambis nigropunctatus, thought erroneously by some people to be venomous. (A newly hatched juvenile of this lizard was shown to me by Dixon Capriata, another herbalist. He had it preserved in a bottle and insisted that it was not a baby matte— that was only what I thought it was, and I was mistaken. He said it was a “mapepire lizard,” highly venomous, and so swift that it would dart out of the bushes in the cocoa estates where it lived, “sting” you on your bare instep, and be gone before you had seen it or realized you had been bitten.) Use of snake or lizard skin or parts of their bodies in the liquid remedies for snakebite in Trinidad is similar to that documented in Africa and from ancient times (Lewis Wall ; Russell :). However the Hausa belief and practice of using the inhaled smoke from the burning of the cast-off skin of a snake to ease the course of childbirth has not been perpetuated in Trinidad. The Hausa believe that the ease with which a snake is seen to slip from its skin is magically transferred to the woman in labor (Lewis Wall :–). In their overall fear of everything serpentine and their distance in time from tribal memory, Trinidadians whose forebears originated in Africa have not preserved this belief or practice. Manson’s son John uncapped the bottle of Old Man, poured a capful, and offered it to me to drink. Having introduced myself as one knowledgeable—and seeking knowledge—about all things serpentine, I could not refuse. The liquid smelled vaguely like coffee; I drank off the proffered capful, and never have I tasted a liquid so bitter. Bitterness seems to be the main quality described for all the vines, roots, or cures for snakebite. Besides the bitterness there was no other effect except for a residual dryness at the back of my throat, which a few swallows of tepid water washed away. One of my companions, Jalaludin Khan, also accepted a sip, but the other, Edmund Charles, declined. When asked what was in Old Man, Manson’s reply was evasive and offhand, simply that there were “all kinda ting” in it, including the matte skin, which could not be disguised. Francis Morean, a folk medicine herbalist and botanist, claims that the contents might possibly consist of the vine lyan tasso, Bauhina excisa or B. cumarensis; bulbils of snake tannia, Dracontium asperum (= D. foecundum); and the spiny palm known as pikmok, Bactris sp. When I offered to bring Manson some plants of the mat root vine, he was delighted, for he had been unable to locate them for some time. On a subsequent visit I brought him three growing Aristolochia rugosa plants. Manson claimed several cures on snakebite victims using his Old Man mixture. One young man, bitten while working on the bush road above Loango village, was brought to him in almost total collapse—possibly from fear, for he thought he was a dead man. After a few drafts of Old Man, the “dead man” who

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had been carried into Manson’s humble house walked out completely cured and reassured. No doubt Manson believes in the ability of his Old Man to reverse and cure the effects of snakebite. Even when the victim may eventually have to be taken to hospital, he maintains that had it not been for the administering of his mixture, as a sort of first-aid, the victim would probably have died. He never tells of the cures he may have attempted with doubtful results. Quite often the antidote is seen or touted as being effective not only for snakebite and as a cure for all poisonings, injected or taken orally, but also as a general toning-up tonic for overall bodily strength and health. This was much the case with the second legendary snakebite antidote manufacturer, Javrien Dixon Capriata of Arima. At first Capriata was reluctant to talk to me, suspicious that I would attempt to take away in a few minutes the knowledge he had taken more than seventy years to accumulate. But he slowly warmed to the shared stories and the knowledge that I knew of Ivan T. Sanderson and his book Caribbean Treasure (), in which Capriata is mentioned as Sanderson’s guide, companion, mentor, and bush doctor. Before long Capriata was showing me his treasures: preserved specimens of lizards, frogs, and a snake or two in screw-top jars, floating in a liquid he claimed was a secret formula taught to him by Sanderson. Among these specimens were the immature Tupinambis that he insisted was a “mapepire lizard” and a large specimen of legless lizard, the “two-headed snake” Amphisbaena fuliginosa, which he called a corail and deemed to be very deadly. (He claimed that this corail had its origin in the postmortem metamorphosis of a butterfly. When a butterfly seemingly “dies,” there is a series of morphological changes. After it has become the victim of a spider’s web, it changes into a bagworm cocoon, then a “worm,” and finally into a snake, the aforesaid corail.) All these tales Capriata told with dead seriousness, as he at last got around to bringing out a -ounce rum bottle filled with a clear pale yellowish liquid. There was brown sediment on the bottom of the bottle. This, he said, was his cure-all, which he called his “venom.” He scoffed at any and all other general cures or mixtures, saying that in the simplicity of the “venom” lay its power, for it was derived not from a number of objects or plants but from one vine, which he went into another room to get. He brought out a section of twisted wood, which could have been a piece of jungle vine or liana or a root. As he demonstrated, it was more or less shaped like a snake, but that was not the only way that he recognized it; he showed us longitudinal striations in its wrinkled bark and some cross folds that, upon his pointing them out, did vaguely resemble the knuckles of human fingers. This was the magic vine, he insisted, and its name, even the name he called it, was going to remain secret, for though the secret had been passed to him by his father, he had no son, and his daughter showed no interest in inheriting it. Capriata claimed he had cured many people suffering from the effects of

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snakebite with this “venom.” One was a man called Govia, who despite several weeks in hospital was still without relief or cure for a badly gangrenous leg. Govia was carried bodily by his family into Capriata’s house as a last resort, for Govia was fully expecting to die, and Capriata’s “venom” was their last hope. After two tumblers of it were gulped down, Govia began to sweat. According to Capriata, the gangrenous leg began to suppurate copiously—blood, “poison,” and pus flowing out. An hour later, Govia was able to walk unaided out of the house. Two more glasses on subsequent days cured Govia completely. But, complained Capriata, “the son of a bitch never give me a cent,” to which comment the parrot in his kitchen nearby added several chuckles and screeching hilarious laughs. Undeterred by this ingratitude, Capriata told us he had later treated a woman warded in the Arima Hospital. She had attempted suicide by drinking one of the phosphorous-based herbicides and was expected to die. One preliminary dose of “venom” in a smuggled-in cup of tea had her vomiting until nothing else would come up; a second and third had her sitting up in bed and on the way to recovery. This “venom” was also used as a tonic to strengthen the body, and was the stated cause of Capriata’s virile and healthy  years. However, until the vine with which the “venom” is concocted is identified scientifically and its properties are analyzed and tested, one has only Capriata’s claims to go by. These are, perhaps, as fragile as his other claims to be on intimate terms with one or more of the folk-legend personages said to roam the forests where the vine grows. However, the fame of this vine extends backward in time to earlier snakeantidote concocters. Sylvester “Syl” Devenish, pursuing his study of antidotes for snakebite in the latter half of the nineteenth century, extracting knowledge and folklore from “old Indians and Africans and hunters,” believed he had discovered the magical vine that was an infallible remedy for snakebite. He was never able to get a scientific analysis done to test its efficacy, but he was presented with an opportunity to test another much-touted cure by a Mr. Lobo, who brought from Ecuador a serum called “curarine” for the curing of snakebite. Lobo’s fame resided in the information that he had used himself as a guinea pig for an experimental snakebite and then injected himself with his curarine to effect a cure. To test this “cure,” Devenish arranged for two dogs to be bitten and one to be injected with the curarine, all supervised by Dr. Louis de Verteuil. The dog to which the curarine was given soon died; the other dog, the control, was euthanased to put it out of its misery from the snakebite (De Verteuil ). If the vaunted curarine was based in any way on curare, as its name suggests, death would be inevitable for any animal so injected, whether it had first been envenomated by a snake or not. Guppy () gives the ingredients of the curare used by the South American Indians in an account of his stay with the Wai Wai: two unidentified kinds of leaves were present, but the remaining four items are all poisonous—roots of the Strychnos vine; bark of another vine, pos-

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sibly Lonchocarpus; arum leaf (aroid leaves contain oxalic acid); and teeth and venom of Bothrops and Lachesis. Magic or Incantations

The perceived mysterious nature of snakes is ripe ground for the rise of the belief that there must be something magical in their habits, and thus, to deal with them, especially in curing the results of their bites, there must be some magical element in the treatment. It is not generally known that snakes are deaf to airborne sounds. Thus, claims that snakes can be “called”—and called only by certain people—lend an air of mystery and magic, bordering at times on evil magic, as the snake is conceived of as evil in most cultures. I have not been able to trace the identity of the snake man in the Arima-Blanchisseuse Valley who could apparently whistle and call snakes out of the bamboos. As described in the Lachesis species account, another call that snakes are supposed to heed is the squeaking sound made by articulating the bracts of the unopened flower of the balisier, Heliconia bihai (Ditmars ). It is strange that neither of the two major transplanted sections of the population of Trinidad and Tobago has retained any apparent elements of former aspects of culture celebrating snakes and simply kill all snakes indiscriminately. Those of African origins might have had snakes in their ancestor-worship societies or god-pantheons, such as the sacred snake Bida of several West African religions (Koslow ). The forebears of Trinidadians from India might have been familiar with snakes as hangers-on and helpers to the deities, such as in “the cult of the powerful, magical Hindu naga”; often many headed, this serpent is the patron and guardian of water and treasure, both material and spiritual (Rawson :). Incantations addressed to snakes have to be seen as magical and are now rarely referred to except in obscure stories and tales. The “command” (Hercules ) given to snakes, or the prayers to protect oneself and others from snakes, are called locally “loraison” or “prayers.” That the belief in loraison is still strong was demonstrated by Manson, in Loango, reciting for us in swift patois (French Creole) or Spanish—it was unintelligible to us—what he called his “Mocamel.” This prayer, he claimed, not only protected one against snakes but showed the lost hunter the way out of the forest and acted as a life preserver when drowning was certain. He told us of a shipwreck off the north coast, when a pirogue, in which he and two companions were traveling capsized. One young man drowned, but Manson and the other man, by reciting the mocamel, stayed afloat until rescued by a passing boat. Manson’s “mucamel” (Thompson :) is sometimes referred to as a “psalm,” which “when said repeatedly would cause the person to know exactly when he would die.”

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It is related elsewhere (Winer :–) how during a manicou hunt west of Matelot village on the north coast of Trinidad, I caught a juvenile cascabel dormillon and was promptly bitten, much to the horror of the bag man, Priest, who ran away, terrified, from the hunting party. What is not related there is the fervor with which the same man begged me for the secret, the loraison, that had enabled me to catch the snake, be bitten, and survive the bite. He hung back in the crowd as I showed the villagers the snake that I had caught; the story of our hunt had preceded us back to Matelot and everyone wanted to see the snake— and also, perhaps, to see me get bitten again. I did not oblige them, for although this snake is not venomous, its bite was nonetheless quite painful. Priest pestered me, at times with tears in his eyes, to give him the secret, for as he put it, I would go back to Port of Spain where there were no snakes, while he was condemned to remain in mortal danger every day as he went about his agricultural pursuits in and around the jungle and cocoa and coffee estates in Matelot. No matter how hard I tried to convince him that first, I did not die because the snake was not venomous, and second, there was no prayer, no loraison, that facilitated my catching and handling of snakes and survival of bites, Priest would not believe me. He eventually gave up begging me and stamped off angrily, cursing and mumbling under his breath. No doubt there are similar prayers and incantations in all parts of the world where snakes and humans come into contact with one another, sometimes with dire results to either or both parties. Prophylaxis or Immunity

Though there have been many claims from all over the world that there are certain methods of ensuring safety from snakebite, I have been unable to run to ground any such claims that have any current substance in Trinidad. It is true that Manson claims his mocamel prayer gives him immunity from being bitten if he goes into the bush, but how can one possibly test this? When I was a teenager, I remember a mango tree laden with ripening mangoes—julie mangoes, the sweetest and most desirable. We could not climb and pick them, for right among the biggest cluster of fruit was a huge nest of jackspaniard wasps. An old man living nearby had boastfully claimed that he could “hold” anything, including snakes, and with a simple process he could get rid of this wasp nest for us: by merely rubbing the palms of his hands under his armpits, he would become immune to attack or stings from the wasps. This, he insisted, held true for snakes as well. We called his bluff and he had no alternative but to do as he had boasted he would. Having rubbed his hands under his odoriferous armpits, he climbed the tree, attempted to “pick” the nest, and fell out of the tree, screaming and flapping his arms to try to ward off the swarming, stinging wasps. We left the mangoes to their defenders.

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Yet, in contrast, I have seen an old lady, Mrs. Tempro, calmly go under the pillared house where she lived in San Fernando, slowly approaching wasp nests as large and as occupied with the same jack-spaniards. She carefully pinched off the nest from its waxlike pedicel, carried it steadily to a small bonfire, and dropped it—wasps and all—into the flames. For this I have no explanation; nor did she. She just did it. Some snake men claim to have charms that provide immunity. Clifford Chan claimed that his charms allowed him to pick up both Bothrops and Lachesis barehanded without being bitten. Though I saw Chan handle these snakes (see fig. ), they had been in captivity for some time, and I suspect that they had either been injured during initial capture or were in a torpid state, being kept in damp and cool boxes or wet crocus bags. Of course, it added to his fame for him to claim that he had the necessary charms and herbs to ensure he was not bitten as he worked in his cocoa estate, clearing bush and cutting trails. Chan also claimed to be immune to the bites of the snakes he handled, perhaps having built up some immunity in his system from the many bites he did get. The fact of the matter is that often, after a bite, he would refuse conventional help, plying himself with his herbs and liquids, potions and prayers, until he was in a state of collapse or unconsciousness. His family would then carry him off to the hospital, where I visited him more than once—and on one occasion after he had been given last rites by a Catholic priest who anticipated his imminent death. Chan was destined to live, however. I photographed his badly hemorrhaged and pre-gangrenous hand (see fig. ). In Guyana, while hunting snakes there with Elliot Olton in , after the purpose of our visit had become known, I was often asked by the Guyanese in a manner that was more a statement than a question: “You have cut?” Baffled by this, we questioned them as to what this meant, but we never got a reply that did not confuse us further. They simply said evasively, “You must have cut if you holding snake.” It was several years later, while researching material for this book, that the possible meaning of “cut” became clear. Guppy () explains that in Guyana, small cuts are made in the flesh of a person who wishes to be inoculated against scorpion stings and snakebite. For protection against scorpions, the sting of a live scorpion is put into the cut. How the snake immunization is done he does not explain, but he reveals that caiman teeth are used as charms against snakebite (Guppy :, ). A “cut” is also used, according to South American Indian legend, by making a “frog charm” to ensure hunting success, prepared from a frog rubbed into a cut made in the body (Guppy ). It is likely that the initial cut may be made using the caiman teeth or even the fang of a venomous snake against which the protection is sought. This cutting or enlarging of wounds dates back to ancient times (Russell :).

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One must bear in mind that in Guyana, the population consists of a mixture of indigenous and transplanted peoples and, as in Trinidad, their beliefs and cultures reflect this mixture of origins. A cut as protection from and immunity to snakebite seems to have two sources. The first possibly has its origins in certain aspects of snake worship in Africa (Hambly :), where to attempt to ensure immunity from snakebite, the fangs, the tip of a snake’s tail, and some roots are ground together and the mixture is rubbed into cuts made between the thumb and forefinger and between the big and second toes, the operation being repeated at intervals of several years. The second is the method by which beenas or charms are used by the Indians (Rodway ). Small cuts are made in the skin and the specific beena—in the case of snakes this is Dracontium foecundum (= D. asperum)—is rubbed into the cut to assure that the protection works. Thus, by a possible amalgamation of these two similar practices and beliefs, from two different continents and cultures, the belief in the protection of “cut” against snakes is extant today in Guyana. I have not come across a similar belief in Trinidad, except for a reference in Wilkins (), who notes in Slave Son that the juice of the guaco—Mikania guaco [sic]— is administered as an inoculation to several parts of the body as an antidote to snakebite. She does not indicate whether the antidote is administered in anticipation of a snakebite or after the bite has been received. However, as has been noted, Wilkins uses several references more suitable to Guyana than to Trinidad. A curious reversal of this notion of inoculation as a protection from and antidote to snakebite is the use of snake venom to cause harm or to poison an enemy or victim. Used as an adjunct to obeah, snake venom, perhaps with other poisons known to the obeah practitioner mixed in, is secreted under the fingernails of the aggressor; scratches or cuts are made in the skin of the victim under cover of an attack or during a vigorous ritual, which brings about the death of the one scratched or cut. Kingsley (:) relates that at the time of his writing there was a belief that obeah men “carry a drop of snake’s poison under a sharpened fingernail, a scratch from which is death.” Kingsley further recounts that Humboldt reported a similar practice among “an Indian tribe on the Orinoco River.” Though she does not specify that it was snake poison he was using, Wilkins (:) has her Dagoman Fanty, well acquainted and familiar with poisonous snakes, wreak revenge on his old adversary Higgins by clutching him in a death grip and driving “his long and poisoned nails into the ears of his enemy.” There is a common thread, a linkage, between Africa, South America, and Trinidad in these stories, but I have been unable to uncover any modern counterparts. Use of poison secreted beneath the fingernails turns up in the literature as far back as  (Hughes), when it was reported that in Barbados, poisonous juice extracted from grated cassava roots was fermented it “became infected with

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‘worms’ called `topuea’; these the Indians and Negroes dried and powdered and stealthily transferred as a supposedly deadly poison, from beneath the poisoner’s thumb-nail to a victim’s food bowl” (Sturtevant :). One of the oddest claims I have run across is of a woman in Pakistan who claims that inoculations with snake venom since she was a child have not only rendered her immune to their bites but have also caused her to kill “other pets” (not specified) accidentally by scratching them with her poisonous fingernails. This snake charmer assures us that she has never harmed a human, but we are left to speculate that she could do so if she so chose (Subhani ). Potassium permanganate, sold in Trinidad under the trade name Condy’s Crystals, is an essential ingredient in popular prophylaxis against the venom of snakes. No self-respecting hunter or bush man would venture into the bush without his packet of crystals in his hunting sack. Rubbed into wounds, on hunting dog and man alike, especially into the cuts made into the fang punctures in cases of snakebite, this chemical is reputed to be a cure-all and a neutralizer of all harm from poison. It is, however, interesting to note the following, and to proceed with caution when considering the use of potassium permanganate in the treatment of snakebite. As related by Dr. S. W. Cartwright (), one worker in Central America, bitten by a rattlesnake, was given first aid by a nurse; this consisted of putting potassium permanganate into the incisions made over the fang punctures in the bitten man’s leg. Given antivenin, the victim of the bite never developed symptoms of any kind usually associated with a snakebite. However, the nurse, who had a small abrasion on his little finger, got some blood from the wound in this abrasion. Though this area too was treated with potassium permanganate, he developed all the symptoms of snakebite, far worse than the man originally bitten. Thus, the ability of the chemical to have any beneficial effect or to neutralize venom must be reexamined. Minton and Minton (:) note that “it has no neutralizing action on venom in the tissues.” Excision

One of the most drastic measures suggested in the category of swift emergency treatment for snakebite is excision of the flesh around the site of the bite or amputation of the finger or limb on which the bite has occurred. However, the effectiveness of this procedure is highly questionable when the physical facts of snake bite are considered. Venom injected by hypodermic needle–like fangs enters the tissues and surrounding circulatory system of capillaries with such swiftness that unless there is instant amputation, little good can be accomplished by the cutting out of flesh or the lopping off of a finger or toe, much less an arm or leg. The conditions under which most snakebites occur certainly do not suggest

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or allow this procedure, if attempted, to accomplish anything beyond the permanent maiming of the victim and the added shock and loss of blood involved in such a deliberate and brutal action. Cross () wrote of a “snake-dancer” called Johan who had refused to have his tongue cut off, which excision must have been considered by those suggesting it as the only way to save Johan’s life. Cross notes that Johan’s declining this had more to do with the alterations to his love life should his tongue be removed than with misgivings over living without speech and over all the other disabilities that tonguelessness suggests. We will never know if this operation would have worked, for according to Cross, Johan died, lingua intacta. Hunters, in their pursuit of game, sometimes seem to forget the dangers that lurk in dark holes into which animals retreat when chased, or where they make their natural homes or hides. Mutton-birders collecting shearwaters from holes on the islands in the Bass Strait between Tasmania and Australia have often been bitten by the Chappell Island tiger-snake, an extremely venomous snake. Snakes that share the birds’ burrows are an ever-present danger to any hand thrust in to grab the fattening chicks. In these cases of snakebite, excision is not an option, as the swift neurotoxic effects of this snake’s venom would make this procedure futile. Carr (Mole b) was a victim of a serious snakebite from a mapepire zanana when he forgetfully thrust his hand into the a burrow, trying to stab what he thought might be a tatu (armadillo). Quick retaliation by the snake resulted in Carr being bitten on the thumb; the snake slid out, holding onto Carr’s thumb. Trusting to Melidor’s Antidote to Snake Bite rather than excision of his thumb— if in fact this option occurred to Carr, for he does not mention it—remedies thought to be tried and true were applied, in spite of which Carr suffered weeks of pain, vomiting, and confinement to bed. However, if no such trusted remedy or medical attention is available, and sure death is the expected result, excision has been the choice of the victim. Schomburgk (:) stated that he “was especially struck with the case of a young man who as the result of the bite of a poisonous snake, Trigonocephalus atrox [= Bothrops atrox], had immediately cut off half the foot which had been bitten: the damage was so well repaired that he only limped, almost unnoticeably.” The following story was told to me by my father, Oscar Boos. In , traveling by truck south from Ciudad Bolívar on the Orinoco River on his way to a job in the gold mines of El Callao, he and his companions had camped as usual when night fell, beside the barely discernible dirt road. Later that night, as they were sitting around a dying fire, a man of mixed Spanish and Indian blood stumbled into the camp in a semiconscious condition. His left hand and wrist were wrapped in a tangle of torn strips of filthy cloth, soaked with congealed and clotted blood. Blood still oozed and dripped from the dark ball of primitive bandages as the man collapsed into unconsciousness.

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Unwrapped, the wound exposed was difficult to explain. There was no hand, from a line drawn from the web between the little finger and the ring finger to a point behind the thumb. Only the little finger protruded from the mass of severed bone, tendons and blood vessels. After the blood had been stopped by a tourniquet and the wound had been washed and rebandaged, the man was fed and given restoratives. The next day he was able to relate, when questioned, that he had been hunting agoutis; thinking there was one in a likely-looking hollow log— for he had seen some movement at the mouth of the hole—he had thrust his left arm deep into the hollow. He was feeling about in the darkness, his arm going in until it was shoulder-deep, when he felt a bite on his hand. He withdrew his hand and saw a large snake holding onto the fleshy area between thumb and forefinger. Without hesitation, he said, he shook the snake loose, placed his left hand on top of the log, and with one swift chop of the machete he was carrying in his right hand, cut off his thumb, three fingers, and the major part of his palm. Whether he survived this drastic jungle surgery is not known, but he was not showing any symptoms of envenomation when he was dropped off at the next township. Though we will never know, it would be a sad irony if the snake that bit the Venezuelan agouti hunter were not one of the venomous pit vipers but one of the medium-sized boas that also hide in logs and do bite on occasion if provoked. It is clearly possible that the ignorance and fear of those who lump all snakes together as dangerous and deadly had caused him to cut off most of his left hand unnecessarily. However, in his mind, it was the only recourse, and he acted swiftly and decisively. So distant was he from civilization and medical help that had the snake indeed been a large mapepire balsain or mapepire zanana, or a South American rattlesnake, his death would possibly have been as he foresaw. There are those who think we in Trinidad and Tobago are surrounded by snakes that present a constant danger, and that the only good snake is a dead snake, but in reality there is little chance of most people ever encountering a venomous snake. As our jungles are cut down to make way for roads, slash-and-burn agriculture, and new housing settlements for our burgeoning population, encounters are inevitable, and some of these encounters may be with one of the four venomous and potentially dangerous kinds of snakes in Trinidad. All the others—all the remaining  species of snakes in Trinidad and all  in Tobago, none of these venomous—can be discounted as dangerous to humans in any way except for fears that persist among the ignorant and uninformed. It is to counter such ignorance and to help realign the balance, as well as to provide information for people already interested in snakes, that this book was written. I have tried to relate every story I have encountered during research for this book, a process that probably started when I was a boy and heard my first fantastic snake story or saw my first horse whip in a hedge or Leptodeira under a turned board.

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I have tried to show the snakes of Trinidad and Tobago in their best possible light in my photographs, though I am sure that the unconvinced may nevertheless shudder and quickly turn the page. To these people I say: stay a little longer and gaze a few more seconds at some of the more distinctive of our fauna. Some snakes are beautiful and fascinating, many are useful in rodent control, and by far the majority are harmless to us. They may even assist us, for ongoing research into their venoms shows promise for use in some surgical and medical procedures, especially to treat cardiovascular disorders using proteins found in the venom of a Brazilian pit viper (Hoechst ). In the end, they ask of us only one thing—to be left alone.

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Appendix 1 The Belgian Black Stone

For all kinds of septic poison. For the bites of scorpions, snakes mad dogs and other venemous animals; also for the prick of a thorn or any poison in the blood caused by bad sores or wounds. In applying this wonderful remedy, no medicine is given and no operation is made; simply draw a drop of blood with a needle and apply the Stone. For the bite of Scorpions do not prick the injured spot, but a little distance away from it. For the bite of the Snake place the Stone on the actual spot. If very bad use two or three Stones and draw a drop of blood for each, before applying them. In the case of a Snake-bite do not allow the person to lie down, because the poison of the snake travels faster than that of the scorpion; keep them moving for two or three hours. For the bite of a Dog, place the Stone on the Spot. The Stone coming in contact with the blood, adheres to the injured part almost suddenly, and will not fall off, although pretty heavy, until it has extracted all the poison. The Stone then drops off and will not stick again, the pain ceases, the inflamation disappears and all danger is passed. After using the Black Stone, it must be washed in teped water and left in it for half and hour, when the blood will come out of the Stone and settle at the bottom of the basin. The Stone taken out of the water must be left steeping in milk for about two hours, afterwards washed in fresh water and exposed to the air for some time. The Stone can be used for any time and lasts forever, even should it be broken in pieces.

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PRICE: $. At J. T. Johnson Ltd. Port of Spain

San Fernando

The Belgian Blackstone The wonderful discovery of the Rev. Father Ambrose J. Vinckier, P.O., of Arouca, Trinidad, B.W.I, is an infallible remedy for the bite of snakes, mad dogs, etc., of the sting of scorpions, centipedes, bees, wasps, spiders, and other venomous insects, and also for blood poisoning. The “Belgian Blackstone” received its name from the discoverer, who is a Belgian. On the application of the Blackstone to the injured part—the pain ceases almost immediately; after half an hour or less, according to the seriousness of the case, all inflammation disappears and all danger is past. No house should be without this precious stone. It saves human beings in the surest and simplest way. The Blackstone can be used at any time and lasts forever.  Before applying the “Belgian Blackstone” simply draw a drop of blood with a needle from the injured part. The stone, coming in contact with the blood, adheres almost suddenly to the injured part, and will not fall off until it has extracted all the poison. After using the “Blackstone” put it in tepid or cold water for half an hour, afterwards place it for about two hours in milk, and finally wash in fresh water and expose to the air for some time. P R I C E : F O U R D O L L A R S E AC H

At J. T. Johnson Ltd. Port of Spain

San Fernando

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Appendix 2 Identifying Large, Diurnal, Mostly Black Snakes in Trinidad and Tobago

Spilotes pullatus pullatus—tigre, tigro (plate , figs. , , ): Shiny black, either all black or more commonly with at least some bright yellow markings on the lips and fore body, forming stripes angled backward from the belly up to the dorsal ridge. Close examination will show that there are usually two postocular scales, sometimes fused into one. When threatened, the tigre inflates the first third of the body. Scales are in  rows. Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus—yellow-bellied puffing snake (plate , figs. , , , ): Dull black body with distinctive keeled scales forming raised lines running the length of the body. The top of the head is chocolate brown. There are varying amounts of orange or yellow on the fore body, with bright orange-yellow on the sides of the face and under the head and fore body. At close quarters and held in the hand, there are three postocular scales; this is crucial in identifying the young and immatures. When the snake is annoyed, the bright yellow throat is inflated, and the white interscale skin is exposed on the dorsal surface of the neck and fore body. Scales are in  rows. Drymarchon corais corais—yellow-tail cribo (plate , figs. , , ): Blue-black to dull black body, beginning to be banded with dirty orange or yellow at midbody, until the black is replaced by dark orange or yellow on the tail. The underside of the head and the lower labials are dirty yellow. There are two postocular scales. This snake may inflate the neck area to expose dirty white and yellow interscale skin. Scales are in  rows. Chironius carinatus carinatus—machete savane (plate , figs. , ): A long, thin, olive-green to black snake with a sharply ridged back, where there is a lighter

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dorsal line. The chin and underside of the fore body are bright yellow. There is a row of yellow spots on the first two rows of dorsal scales flanking the belly. The head is distinct from the neck, and eyes are proportionately large. There are two postocular scales. The tail is extremely long and thin. The machete savane may open its mouth and inflate the neck region. Scales are in  rows. Chironius multiventris septentrionalis—long-tailed machete savane (plate , figs. , , ): (Adults only.) A long, thin, olive-brown to green-black snake with a sharply ridged back, where there is a lighter dorsal line. The chin and underside of the fore body are yellow, and there are no spots on dorsal scale rows. The head is distinct from neck, and eyes are proportionately large. There are two and may be three postocular scales. The tail is proportionately longer than in C. c. carinatus. It may open its mouth and inflate the neck region. Scales are in  rows. Clelia clelia clelia—black cribo (plate , figs. , ): (Adults only.) A blue-black to light gray-black, smooth-scaled, thick-bodied snake, with very little neck narrowing behind the head. The belly and underside of the head are pearly white. There are two postoculars. The head is somewhat wedge-shaped. Scales are in  rows.

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Glossary aberrant: differing from the normal type aglyph: without fangs amphibian: one of the class Amphibia, including frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders annuli: rings of varying color that circle the body of a snake anterior: front or head end apical pit: a tiny spot near the posterior tip of the dorsal scales arboreal: living in trees arthropod: invertebrate animal with jointed legs, e.g., insects avian: pertaining to birds calcified: having an egg shell of hardened calcium, as opposed to a soft-shelled one cloaca: common opening for reproductive, urinary, and digestive systems, leads to anal opening cloacal claws: vestiges of hind limbs found in some families of snakes at the sides of the cloaca constrictor: a snake that suffocates prey by wrapping tightly around the victim dentary: one of the bones in the skull bearing teeth diurnal: active during the day dorsal: located on the dorsum dorsum: upper surface of the back of a snake dorsal scales: all the scales on the snake excepting the ventrals, subcaudals, and head scales dorsolateral: the region between the back and the sides of the body ecdysis: shedding of skin, sloughing endemic: confined to, or only found in, a certain area or country epiphyte: plant that lives nonparasitically on other plants or trees feral: pertaining to a domestic animal gone wild fossorial: living under ground frontal: a large scale on top of the head between the eyes genera: plural of genus genus: a group of several similar species with common anatomical characteristics gravid: having eggs or young inside the body

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hemolytic: breaking down of the blood corpuscles hemotoxin: a poison that alters the blood herpetofauna: animal life consisting of reptiles infralabials: scales lining the lower lips internasals: scales between the nasal scales invertebrate: animal without a backbone iridescence: rainbow-like colors given off by the scales of certain snakes keeled scale: dorsal or head scale having a central raised ridge labials: scales on the upper and lower lips lateral: pertaining to the sides of the body laterally compressed: appearing squeezed in from the sides, vertically Linnaean nomenclature: standard system of naming for all of the animal kingdom, developed by Carl von Linné in the late eighteenth century loreal: a scale on the side of the snout, separating the preocular and nasal scales matte: dull colored, not shiny maxilla: a bone in the upper jaw maxillary: pertaining to the maxilla nape: area immediately behind the head nasals: scales in which the nostrils are located necrotic: dead or rotting neonate: newly hatched or born neurotoxic: affecting the nervous system nocturnal: active at night nuchal: referring to the area behind the head, the nape nuchal band: a contrasting band of color at the back of the head obeah: a system of magic practiced in the Caribbean ocelli: eyelike spots occiput: the back part of the head ocular: a clear scale covering the eye oestrus: a condition in which the female is receptive to mating opisthoglyph: having enlarged grooved teeth at the back of the upper jaw ophiophagy: the eating of snakes ovarian eggs: unfertilized eggs in the ovaries oviparous: reproducing by the laying of eggs ovoviviparous: retention of eggs; laying and hatching simultaneously palatine: on the palate, the roof of the mouth parietals: a pair of large scales behind the frontal on top of the head pelagic: living in the open sea pelvic: pertaining to the pelvis or hip girdle postocular: small scale behind the ocular or eye prefrontals: a pair of large scales in front of the frontal on the top of the head

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premaxilla: a small bone in front of the maxilla preoculars: small scales in front of the ocular or eye pterygoid: wing-shaped bones in the palate behind the palatines rostral: scale between the nasals on the front of the head slough: to shed old skin, ecdysis species: a group of animals that can interbreed freely in a given region squamata: the order of reptiles to which the lizards and snakes belong squamate: having the body covered with scales subcaudals: the scales, sometimes paired, under the tail subspecies: local races into which species are divided substrate: a layer of earth under the surface supralabials: lip scales on the upper jaw supranasals: the scales above the nasals supraoculars: the scales above the ocular or eye taxon: (plural taxa) the scientific name of an animal taxonomy: the study of the scientific classification of animals temporals: scales at the side of the head behind the eye and above the supralabials terrestrial: living on the land triad: a group of three ventral: pertaining to the underside ventrals: scales under the body from the neck to the anus vertebral stripe: a light or dark stripe running down the center of the dorsum vestigial: pertaining to a small body part retained from earlier evolutionary stage viviparous: giving birth to live young

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References

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Wilson, L. D., and C. E. Mena. . Systematics of the melanocephala group of the colubrid genus Tantilla. San Diego Society of Natural History, Memoir : –. Wilson, L. D., and J. R. Meyer. . The Snakes of Honduras. nd ed. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Public Museum. Winer, L. . Trinidad and Tobago: Varieties of English Around the World, . Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing. Winer, L., and H. E. A. Boos. . Agouti to zandolie: Fauna in the Dictionary of Trinbagonian. Living World, Journal of the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists’ Club, th Anniversary Issue, –: –. Wistrel, A. . Reptiles of Trinidad, pt. . Forked Tongue (Greater Cincinnati Herpetological Society) ():–. Wong, W. . Some folk medicinal plants from Trinidad. Economic Botany ():–. Wood, Rev. J. G. . Biographical introduction and explanatory index. In Charles Waterton.  []. Wanderings in South America, the North-West of the United States and the Antilles in the Years , ,  and , with Original Instructions for the Perfect Preservation of Birds, Etc. for Cabinets of Natural History. London: Century Publishers. Woodcock, H. I. . A History of Tobago. Ayr: Printed for the Author by Smith and Grant, Ayreshire Express office. Reprint, London: Frank Cass and Company, . Worth, C. B. . A Naturalist in Trinidad. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott. Wüster, Wolfgang, Jr. . Pers. comm. E-mail via Prof. Garth Underwood, August . Wycherley, G. . Buccaneers of the Pacific. Indianapolis: Bobbs Merrill. Wynn, A. . Letter to Hans E. A. Boos, May . ———. . Letter to Hans E. A. Boos, April . York, H. . A profile of the Guyana Hognose Snake (Phimophis guianensis). League of Florida Herpetological Societies Newsletter, May (unpaginated). Young, W. . Description of Tobago, in Stowe Papers , British Museum Manuscripts Collection, p. . ———. . An historical, statistical and descriptive account of the Island of Tobago. Introduction to “Essay on the commercial and political importance of this possession to Great Britain by Sir Wm. Young, Bart. Gov. –.”  vols. with maps and color illustrations. Manuscript copy, West Indian Historical Library, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad. Zoological Society of London. . Report of the Council and Auditor of the Zoological Society of London, for .  pp. ———. . Proceedings of the General Meeting for Scientific Business, for . Pp. ,  (appendix). ———. . Report of the Council of the Zoological Society of London, for , p. . ———. . Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, p. . Zug, G. R., S. B. Hedges, and S. Sunkel. . Variation in reproductive parameters of three neotropical snakes, Conophanes fissidens, Dipsas catesbyi and Imantodes cenchoa. Smithsonian Contributions to Zoology no. : –.

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References

Index

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Index Pages containing illustrations appear in italics. Abelmoschus moschatus,  aboma,  Acacia senegal,  acanthrocephalans, ,  Acromyrex,  Acromyrex octospinosus,  aesculapii,  agave,  Agouti paca (lapo), ,  Ahaetulla liocercus,  “alligator(s),” ,  Allium sativum,  almond, tropical or Indian,  amarali, ,  amarali group,  Amblyomma dissimile,  Ameiva, xiii, , , , , , ,  Ameiva ameiva,  Ameiva ameiva tobagana,  amethistine python,  Amphisbaena alba, ,  Amphisbaena dubia,  Amphisbaena fuliginosa, , , , ,  amphisbaenids,  anaconda, , , , , , –, , –, ,  Andira inermis,  Anguis scytale,  angulated water snake,  Aniliidae, , ,  Anilius, , , , , , , , , 

Anilius scytale, , , , , , , , , ,  Anilius scytale phelpsorun, ,  Anilius scytale scytale, , , , , , plate  annulated night snake,  annulated water snake,  Anolis, xiii, , , ,  Anolis chrysolepis, ,  Anolis richardi,  Anolis roquet roquet,  Anomalepididae,  Anthurium gracile,  Anthurium scandens,  Araceae, ,  Aristolochia, ,  Aristolochia indica,  Aristolochia reticulata,  Aristolochia rugosa, , , ,  Aristolochia serpentaria,  Aristolochia trilobata, , , ,  armadillo (tatu),  aromata,  ash-colored horse-whip,  ashy whip snake,  asper,  Atractus, , , , , , ,  Atractus cf. univittatus, , , , ,  Atractus trilineatus, , , , , , , , , , , plate  Atractus univittatus,  atrox, ,  Atta,  Atta cephalotes, ,  Attalea maripa, 

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Index

Atta sp.,  Auris (Endolichotis) glabra,  bachac snake,  Bachia, ,  back-fanged false coral,  Bactris major,  Bactris sp.,  balier doux,  banded night snake,  banded tree snake,  barba amarilla,  basin snake,  bat seed, karako,  Battus polydamus,  Bauhinia cumarensis,  Bauhinia excisa, ,  Bauhinia scala-simiae,  beauty of the road,  bebelle-chemin,  beena,  beh belle chemin, , plate  Belgian black stone, , – belle chemin,  biche,  “Big Annie,”  big wheel,  bird-eating snake,  bird snake,  Bitis arietans,  bitter tally, bitter-tally, ,  bizona,  black and yellow rat snake,  black-backed snake,  black cribo, , , , plates ,  black head,  black-headed snake, , plate  blackhead snake,  black-hiari, wakura kudu,  black snake,  black tigre,  Boa, , , , , , ,  Boa anacondo,  Boa aquatica,  boa constrictor, , , , , , , , ,

, , , , , , , , , , , , , plates ,  “Boa Constrictor,”  Boa constrictor, , , , , , , , , ,  Boa Constrictor,  Boa constrictor constrictor, , , , , , , plates ,  Boa constrictor orophias, ,  Boa diviniloqua, , , ,  Boa imperator,  Boa murina, , ,  Boa Murina,  Boa orophias, , , ,  boddaerti dunni,  boddaerti group,  Boddaert’s coluber,  Boddaert’s snake,  Boidae, , , , ,  boiguacu, , ,  bois cano, ,  boomslang, ,  bora-raca,  Bothroechis schlegelii,  Bothrops, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , –, , , , , , ,  Bothrops asper,  Bothrops atrox, xiii, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , plates ,  Bothrops caribbeaus,  Bothrops insularis,  Bothrops lanceolatus, , , , ,  Bothrops sp.,  brother death, ,  brown-banded water snake,  brown-lined snake,  brown snake,  Brysomia coriacea var. spicata,  Bubalis bubalis,  buda,  Bufo marinus, , , , 

Index burrowing false coral, , plate  burrowing snake, ,  bushmaster, , , , , , , , , , , , , plate  Buteo sp.,  caecilians,  caiman, ,  Caiman crocodilurus, , , ,  Caladium,  Caladium bicolor,  Callichthys,  capuchin monkey,  capybara,  Carica papaya,  carinated snake,  carinatus,  carpet snake, , ,  cascabel,  cascabela dormillona,  cascabel dormillon, , , , , , , plate  cascabelle, ,  cascabel = Trigonocephalus tararaca,  cassava,  castabel,  cat-eyed night snake,  cat-eyed snake,  Cathartes aura,  cat’s claw vine,  Cebus albifrons,  Cecropia peltata,  cenchoa snake,  centipede,  Centrorynchus,  Cerastes cerastes,  Cercopithicus mona,  Cestoda,  chadon ben[ee]i,  chadron beni,  chamber bitter,  Chappell Island tiger snake,  charhentier,  checkerbelly, , , plate  chequerbelly, 

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Chelonia,  chicken-foot bhagi,  chigger parasite,  Chiococca alba,  Chironius, , , , , , , , ,  Chironius carinatus, , , , ,  Chironius carinatus carinatus, , , , , plate  Chironius macrophthalmus,  Chironius multiventris, , , , , ,  Chironius multiventris septentrionalis, , , , , –, , , , plate  Chironius scurrulus, , , ,  chunk-head,  chunk-headed snake,  Cissus verticillata,  Clathrotropis brachypetala,  Clelia, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Clelia clelia, , , , , , ,  Clelia clelia clelia, , , , , plates ,  clibo, , ,  clouded snake, , , plate  cloud snake,  cloudy snake, ,  Clusia,  Clusia fockeana,  Cnemidophorus lemniscatus, , ,  cobra,  cocorite palm,  coffee snake,  Coffee sp.,  Cola acuminata,  collared snake,  Colocasia esculenta,  Coluber Variabilis,  Colubridae, , , , , ,  Colubrinae, , ,  common coral snake, , , plate  common tree boa,  concha pina,  Constrictor, , 

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Index

Constrictor constrictor constrictor,  contraveneno, ,  contrayerva,  contra-yerva root,  Cook’s boa,  Cook’s tree boa,  coonocooshe,  corail, , ,  corais snake,  Corallus, , , , , , , ,  Corallus cookei var. melanea or ruschenbergerii,  Corallus enydris,  Corallus enydris cookii,  Corallus hortulanus,  Corallus hortulanus cookii,  Corallus ruschenbergerii, , , , , , , , , plate  coral snake, , , , , , , , , ; female, ; male,  Cordia sebestina,  coreuil,  Corydoras,  couba, kanta-balli,  couesse,  couresse,  creole or balisier fig,  Crepidobothrium gerrardi, ,  cribo, , , ,  cribo noir,  Crocodilia,  Crotalidae,  Crotalinae,  Crotalus,  Crotalus durissus, ,  Crotalus Mutus,  Cruzia rudolphi,  cuaima,  cuaima pina,  curare,  cutlah,  cutlass,  Cyclodontina,  dagowe,  Dasyprocta aguti, 

Dasypus novemcinctus,  deer-swallower,  Dendrophis Aurata, ,  Dendrophis Liocercus,  devil pepper,  Didelphis,  Didelphis marsupialis,  Diffenbachia seguine,  Dipsadinae, , ,  Dipsas, , , , , , , ,  Dipsas cenchoa,  Dipsas trinitatis,  Dipsas trinitatus,  Dipsas variegata,  Dipsas variegata trinitatis, , , , , , , plate  Dispholidus typus, ,  doctor snake, , , ,  doktorschlange,  dormillon, ,  Dorstenia contrajerva, ,  dos cocorite, , , , , plate  Dracontium, ,  Dracontium asperum, , ,  Dracontium dubium,  Dracontium foecundum, , ,  Dracontium pittieri,  Dracunculus, ,  dreaded trigonocephale,  Dromicus melanotus, ,  Dryadophis amarali,  Drymarchon, , , , , , , , ,  Drymarchon corais, , , ,  Drymarchon corais corais, , , , , , , plate  Drymobius, ,  Drymobius boddaerti, , , ,  Drymobius boddaerti dunni,  Drymobius brusei,  dumb cane,  Eira barbara,  Elapidae, , , , ,  Elaps, , , 

Index Elaps corallinus, , ,  Elaps Corallinus,  Elaps lemniscatus, ,  Elaps marcgravii, ,  Elaps riisei, ,  Elaps riisii,  Eleutherodactylus, ,  Eleutherodactylus martinicensis,  el tigre,  Entada polystachya,  Epicrates, , , , , ,  Epicrates cenchria, , , , ,  Epicrates cenchria maurus, , , , , , , plate  Epicrates cenchris, ,  Epicrates cenchris var. fusca,  Epicrates maurus,  Eryngium foetidum,  Erythrolamprus, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Erythrolamprus (synonymy), – Erythrolamprus aesculapii, , , , , , , , , , , , , , plate  Erythrolamprus aesculapii ocellatus, ,  Erythrolamprus bizona, , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Erythrolamprus ocellatus, , , , , , , , , , , , plate  Eudryas, ,  Eudryas amarali, ,  Eudryas b. boddaerti,  Eudryas dunni,  Eunectes, , , , , , ,  Eunectes murina, ,  Eunectes murinus, , , ,  Eunectes murinus gigas, , , , , , , , , plate  Eupatorium triplinerve,  Euterpe sp.,  Eutrombicula alfreddugesi, ,  Eutrombicula alfreddugesi alfreddugesi, , , , , ,  Eutrombicula alfreddugesi tropica, ,  Eutrombicula goldii, , , , , , , , 

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false coral, , , , , , , , plates , ,  false coral snake, , ,  false false coral,  false mapepire, , , plate  Felis pardalis, ,  ferdelance,  fer-de-lance, , , , ,  Fevilla cordiflora, ,  fiddle-string mapepire, ,  fiddle-string snake, , plate  fire mapepire,  Fonsecia ewingi,  Gaboon viper,  garden snake,  Geochelone, xiii Geophis lineatus, ,  Glauconia albifrons,  golden tree snake,  Gonatodes, ,  Gonatodes vittatus,  gopher or indigo snake,  grass machete,  grass snake,  gray lora, , plate  gray tree boa,  green horse-whip,  green machete,  green rigoise,  ground puppy, ,  ground snake,  guabine,  guaco, , , ,  gully root (mapurite),  Gymnophthalmus underwoodi,  Gymnotus sp.,  Haemogregarina, , ,  Haemogregarina (poss. juxtanucleare),  Haemogregarina (poss.) seligmanni,  Haemogregarina (poss. terzii),  Hastospiculum onchocercum, ,  Heliconia bihai,  Helicops, , , , ,  Helicops angulatus, , , , plate 

264

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Index

Helminthophis, , , , , , , ,  Helminthophis flavoterminatus, ,  Helminthophis frontalis,  Helminthophis preocularis,  Helminthophis sp., , ,  Hemidactylus mabouia,  Herpetodryas boddaerti,  Herpetodryas carinatus, , ,  Herpetodryas carinatus var. macrophthalma,  Herpetodryas macrophthalmus , ,  Herpetotheres cachinnans,  hicha, huria,  high woods coral, , , , plates ,  Homolocranion melanocephalum, ,  Hoplias malabaricus, ,  horned viper,  horse whip, horsewhip, , , , , , plate  hortulana,  hortulanus,  huila,  huilla, , , , , , plate  huille, , , , , plate  huillia, , , ,  Hura crepitans,  Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris,  Hydrops, , , , ,  Hydrops triangularis,  Hydrops triangularis neglectus, , , , , , plates ,  Hyla punctatissima,  iguana,  Indian birthwort,  indigo or gopher snake,  Imantodes, , , , ,  Imantodes cenchoa, ,  Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa, , , plate  “Jack,” , ,  jack, jack snake,  japanne, japona, 

japanyai,  jararaca, ,  jouillo (sandbox),  juan de la calle,  jumbo jocko, ,  Kalicephalus,  Kalicephalus chitwoodi,  Kalicephalus costatus,  kanta-balli, couba,  kikuri-bianda,  Kinosternon scorpioides,  Kiricephalus gabonensis,  Kiricephalus,  Kiricephalus clelii,  koro-bally, trysil,  labaria, ,  la cascabela muda,  Lachesis, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Lachesis muta, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Lachesis muta melanocephala,  Lachesis muta muta, xiii, , , , , , , plate  Lachesis muta stenophrys, ,  Lagochilascaris minor, , , , ,  lanceolatus,  land tortoises, xiii lang bef (or rey de cuicuesa),  lapo (Agouti paca),  lappe or paca (Agouti paca),  large coral snake, , , plate  laura,  Leimadophis melanotus,  Leimadophis reginae,  Leimadophis zweifeli,  Leptodeira, xiii, , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Leptodeira annulata, , , ,  Leptodeira annulata ashmeadi, , , , , , plate  Leptodeira rhombifera kugleri,  Leptognathus nebulatus,  Leptophis, , , , , , , 

Index Leptophis ahaetulla coeruleodorsus, , , –, , , , –, plate  Leptophis coeruleodorsus,  Leptophis liocercus,  Leptophis riveti, , ,  Leptophis stimsoni, , , , , , , , , , plate  Leptotyphlopidae, , , , , , ,  Leptotyphlops, , , , , ,  Leptotyphlops albifrons, , , , , , , , ,  Leptotyphlops goudotii, ,  Leptotyphlops goudotii goudotii,  Leptotyphlops spec. inc.,  Leptotyphlops tenella, , , , ,  liana snake, ,  Licania alba (L. venosa),  liguis,  linguiz,  Liophis, , , , ,  Liophis cobella, , ,  Liophis cobellus cobellus, , , , , plates ,  Liophis lineatus,  Liophis melanotus, , ,  Liophis melanotus nesos, , , , plate  Liophis reginae, , , , ,  Liophis reginae ssp.,  Liophis reginae subsp.,  Liophis reginae zweifeli, , , , , plates ,  Liophis sp., ,  Loncheris guianae, Porcupine Rat,  Lonchocarpus,  Lonchocarpus chrysophyllus,  long-tailed machete savane, , , plate  lora, , plate  Luffa operculata,  lyan tasso, ,  Lycognathus,  Lycognathus cervinus,  macajuel, xiii, , , , , , , , 

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265

macajuel oil,  macajuil,  maca ouel,  macaouil,  macaruel,  macasick,  macawel,  maca whel,  macheta,  machete,  machete couesse, , , , plates ,  machete couresse, ,  machete savane, , , plate  mackawel, ,  macrophthalma,  macrophthalmus, , ,  mahajuel,  mahogany rat snake,  Makalata,  manac or manaco palm,  mango snake, , , ,  mangrove cascabel, ,  mangrove dormillon,  mangrove mapepire,  mangrove snake,  manicou, ,  Manihot esculenta,  Mannophryne,  Mannophryne trinitatis, , ,  mapanara, ,  mapanare, ,  mapapero,  mapapi,  mapepiré,  mapepire, , , , , , , ,  mapepire ananas,  mapepire balsain, xiii, , , , , , , , , , , plates ,  mapepire balsam,  mapepire balsayn,  mapepire balsin,  mapepire barcin,  mapepire barsin, 

266

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Index

mapepire boyeyn,  mapepire corde violon, ,  mapepire de fay,  mapepire de fe, , plate  mapepire di fe,  mapepire gallé,  mapepire lizard, ,  mapepire mangue, , plates ,  mapepire plant,  “mapepire something or the other,”  mapepire valsain,  mapepire valsin,  mapepire valsyn,  mapepire velour, , ,  mapepire zanana, xiii, , , , , , , –, –, , , , , , plate  mapepire z’ananas,  mapepire zananna,  mapepire z’ananna,  mapepire z’nanna,  mapipee,  mapipeire snake,  mapipere,  mapipi, , ,  mappapsee,  mappipie,  mappipire, ,  mapurite (gully root),  Mastigodryas, , , , , , , , , , ,  Mastigodryas amarali, , , , ,  Mastigodryas boddaerti,  Mastigodryas boddaerti boddaerti, , , , , , , , , , plates ,  Mastigodryas boddaerti dunni, , , , , , , , , , , ,  Mastigodryas bruesi, ,  mata-toro,  mat root, ,  matte (tegu), ,  Mauccaw, ,  mayok chapelle,  Mazama americana, , 

mc cawwell,  McPipir,  Merrimia sp.,  Metachirus nudicaudatus,  Micrurus, , , , , , , , , , ,  Micrurus circinalis, , , , , , , , , , , , , plate  Micrurus corallinus Riesei,  Micrurus corallinus riesei,  Micrurus (Elaps) corallinus,  Micrurus ibiboboca,  Micrurus lemniscatus, , , , , , ,  Micrurus lemniscatus diutius, , , , , , , , , , , , , , plate  Micrurus lemniscatus frontalis, ,  Micrurus marcgravi, ,  Micrurus marcgravii, ,  Micrurus nigrocinctus coibensis,  Micrurus psyches,  Micrurus psyches circinalis, ,  Mikania guaco, , ,  Mikania micrantha, ,  Mikania micrantha var. congesta,  Mole’s mussurama,  Mona monkey,  moon snake, ,  morocoys, xiii Mr. Bushmaster, ,  murinus,  Musa paradisiaca var. sapientum,  mussurama,  mussurana, ,  mussuvana,  mustarangue,  mute crotal,  Myotis albiscens,  Naja haje,  Nematoda,  nematode worm,  neotropical rattlesnake,  Neuwiede’s oxyrhopus,  nhumba masaka, 

Index night climber,  night snake,  Ninia, , , ,  Ninia atrata, , , , , , , plate  obi seed,  ocellatus,  ocelot,  ocumo,  Oligacanthrorhynchus, ,  olive-brown snake,  Onicola, ,  Ophiocaryon paradoxum,  Ophiotaenia (poss. grandis),  Orthalicus undatus,  Oxybelis, , , , , , , ,  Oxybelis acuminatus,  Oxybelis aeneus, , , , , , , , , , plate  Oxybelis fulgidus, , , , , , , ,  Oxyrhopus, , , , , , ,  Oxyrhopus cloelia,  Oxyrhopus coronatus,  Oxyrhopus guerini,  Oxyrhopus petola, ,  Oxyrhopus petola petola, , , , , plates ,  Oxyrhopus petolarius, ,  Oxyrrhopus neuwiedii,  Oxyuranus scutellatus,  paca (or lappe) (Agouti paca),  parasol ant,  Parides anchises,  Parides neophilus,  parrot snake,  Penelope jacquacu,  Pentachlethra macroloba,  pentastomid, , ,  Pentastomida,  Peperomia pellucida,  Petalognathus catesbyi,  Petalognathus nebulatus, 

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Petivera alliaceae,  Phimosis guianensis,  Phoenix sp.,  Phrynonax, ,  Phrynonax eutropis, , , ,  Phrynonax fasciatus, , ,  Phrynonax poecilonotus polylepis,  Phyllanthus sp.,  Physaloptera sp.,  pike-headed snake,  pikmok,  pineapple mapepire,  pineapple snake,  pink-headed snake,  pipe snakes,  pit viper, ,  pleei group,  Polychrus, xiii,  Porcupine Rat, Loncheris guianae,  Porocephalus clavatus, , , ,  Porocephalus herpetodryados,  Porocephalus stilesi, ,  Proechimys, ,  Protozoa,  Pseudis paradoxis,  Pseudoboa, , , , , , , , , , , , ,  Pseudoboa cloelia,  Pseudoboa coronata, , , ,  Pseudoboa coronatus, , ,  Pseudoboa euphaeus,  Pseudoboa guerini, ,  Pseudoboa neuwiedii, , , , , , , , , , , , , , plates ,  Pseudoboa neuwiedii euphaea,  Pseudoboa neuwiedii euphaeus,  pseudofalse coral,  Pseustes, , , , , , , , ,  Pseustes poecilonotus polylepis, , , , , , , , , plate  Pseustes sulphureus,  Pseustes sulphureus sulphureus, , , , , plate  puffing snake, , 

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Index

Python,  Python sebae,  rabo frito,  Raillietiella,  Raillietiella (prob. furcocerca or bicaudata),  rainbow boa, , , ,  ratonel, , , , plates ,  ratonelle,  ratonera,  ratonero, ,  rattlesnake, , ,  Rattus norvegicus, ,  Rauvolfia hirsuta,  Rauwolfia serpentina,  red chain snake,  red-headed water snake,  red-nape snake, , , plate  red snake, , plate  refriyan,  rei de parel,  reticulated snake,  rey de café,  rey de cuesa,  rey de cuicuesa (or langue bef),  rey de mato,  Rhabdosoma lineatum,  Rhinoclemmys, xiii Rhynchospora nervosa,  rigoise,  rigoise argentée,  ringed boa,  ring-necked coffee snake,  ring-neck snake, , , plate  roi de mapepire,  rough-scaled snake,  rouleau, ,  royal snake,  ruda (rue),  Rumex crispus,  ruschenbergerii  Ruta graveolens,  Rynchocephalia,  sandbox (jouillo),  Sansiveria thyrsiflora, 

Scinax rubra, ,  Scolecosaurus,  Scolopendra,  Scolopendra angulata,  Scytale,  Scytale neuwiedii,  secua nut,  Selagenella,  serpent, ,  serpent corail, ; female,  shapely snake,  sharp nosed tree snake,  Shaw’s black backed snake,  short-tailed ground snake,  shower of gold,  Sibon, , , , , , , ,  Sibon nebulata,  Sibon nebulata nebulata, , , , plate  Sibynomorphus,  silent death of the black night,  Simaba cedron,  Siphlophis, , , , ,  Siphlophis cervinus, , , , , plate  sleeping rattlesnake, ,  slender tree snake,  slug-eating snake,  small coral,  small coral snake,  smooth glossy snake,  smooth machete savane,  snail-eating snake, , , plate  snake bitters, tongue vine,  snake nut,  snakeroot, ,  snake tannia, ,  snake wood,  Solanum sp.,  sombre false coral,  soumatie,  South American rat snake,  South American rattlesnake,  Spilotes, , , , , ,  Spilotes corais,  Spilotes poecilostoma, 

Index Spilotes pullatus, ,  Spilotes pullatus ater,  Spilotes pullatus pullatus, , , , , plate  Squamata,  squirrel snake,  star grass,  star potato vine,  Steatornis caripensis,  Stenostoma albifrons, , ,  Streptophorus atratus,  striped swamp snake, ,  Strophocheilus oblongatus,  Strychnos,  stub-tailed snake,  sucuruju,  surucucus,  sweet liane,  Synbranchus, ,  Synbranchus marmoratus, , ,  Tabernaemontana undulata,  taipan,  tamandua anteater (Tamandua tetradactyla),  tan horse-whip,  Tantilla, , , , , ,  Tantilla melanocephala, , , , , plate  tatu (armadillo),  tayra,  tegu,  Terminalia catappa,  tetiruma,  Thalerophis,  Thalerophis richardi coeruleodorsus,  Thalerophis riveti, ,  Thamnodynastes, , , , , ,  Thamnodynastes (poss. strigatus),  Thamnodynastes sp., , , ,  Thamnodynastes strigatus,  Thamnodynastes strigilis,  Thecadactylus rapicauda,  Thelatornis kirtlandii, ,  thick-necked tree boa, 

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269

thirst snake,  thread snake,  thread snakes,  three-lined ground snake,  three-lined snake, , , plate  three-lined worn snake,  tiger snake,  tigre, xiii, , , plate  tigrel,  tigro,  Tobago false coral,  Tobago one-lined snake, ,  tongue vine, snake bitters,  Tortryx,  Tortryx Scytale, , ,  toshon,  tragovenado,  tree boa, , , ,  tree boa constrictor,  tref, ,  treffe,  trefle,  trigonocephalus,  Trigonocephalus atrox,  Trigonocephalus jararaca,  Trigonacephalus Jararaca, ,  Trigonocephalus tararaca,  Trimeresurus,  Trinidad burrowing snake, , , plate  Trinidad cribo,  Trinidad garden snake,  Tripanurgos, , , ,  Tripanurgos compressus, , , , plate  Trombicula longicalcar, ,  Trombicula manueli,  Trombicula sinnamaryi,  Tropedechis carinatus,  true cascabel, ,  true mapepire, ,  trysil, koro-bally,  Tupinambis,  Tupinambis nigropunctatus,  tural (bow-string hemp),  turales,  twig snake, 

270

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Index

two-headed snake,  Typhlophis squamosus,  Typhlopidae, , , , , ,  Typhlops, , , , , , , ,  Typhlops brongersmai,  Typhlops brongersmianus, , , , , ,  Typhlops lehneri, ,  Typhlops reticulatus, , , , ,  Typhlops sp., ,  Typhlops trinitatus, , , , , , , , plate  Typhonium trilobatum,  variegated snake,  velvet mapepire, ,  Vernouia cinereae,  vidua,  vine snake,  violin-string snake,  Viperidae, , , ,  waku, lyanwak (guaco),  wakuru kudu, black-hiari,  water boa, ,  water coral, , plates ,  water (false) coral,  water mapepire, , , plate  water snake, , ,  whiplash,  whip snake,  white-faced worm snake,  white snake, 

the widow,  wild ochro,  worm snake,  Xanthosoma helleborifolium,  Xenodontinae, , ,  Xiphosoma hortulanum,  yellow bellied cribo,  yellow-bellied puffer,  yellow-bellied puffing snake, , , , plate  yellow belly,  yellow cribo,  yellow frog-snake,  yellow-headed worm snake,  yellow-head ground puppy, ,  yellow machete, ,  yellow-marbled tree boa,  yellow-tail cribo, , –, , , plate  yellow tail rat snake,  yellow tree boa,  zeb a colete,  zeb a couresse,  Zeb astro,  zeb dahi,  zeb giante,  Zeferenella vazin,  Z’herbe couresse,  Zimeron,  zweifeli, 