Hey Abthree.......you scared of snakes

11/19/23   Watching Fantastico right now, and they are talking about the guy they carried 30 KM out of the jungle, just south of Manaus, after he was bitten by a 6 meter long jararaca..........
   

    -@Gasparzinho 777

Not really, but I'm more of a gecko fan. 😂  Sounds awfully big for a jararaca ... fantástico indeed!

     11/19/23   Watching Fantastico right now, and they are talking about the guy they carried 30 KM out of the jungle, just south of Manaus, after he was bitten by a 6 meter long jararaca..........        -@Gasparzinho 777

Not really, but I'm more of a gecko fan. 😂  Sounds awfully big for a jararaca ... fantástico indeed!
   

    -@abthree

When I visited the Red Cross museum of venomous snakes in Bangkok , I learned that tons of extremely dangerous snakes are tiny…like a foot long and as thick as human finger. Almost impossible to see, certainly in a forest or jungle. Scary indeed…

If you like snakes, you should go to CVC and try to book a tour to "Ilha Queimada de Grande"..........just joking as you cannot go there.

It's a small island with about 5,000 tiny, but deadly, incredibly venomous Lancehead Vipers off the coast of Sao Paulo.

Do a web search if you have never heard of it before.......scary........

The place for you to gather serum or anti venum is called Instituto Butanta.

I recall it used to be possible to buy directly from them. Not sure anymore.  But they do produce the serum still. 

Here is the link with some recommended procedures...

https://butantan.gov.br/soros

As per recommendation of the Butantan Institute, located nearby the USP campus, you can't buy directly anymore.  Your local health clinic is the one you can order through .  If any here lives in a Rural Area, I do recommend to get a headstart , and keeping vials it on a fridge. 

And knowing how slow these public health care administrators and workers are slow, make sure you pre order to keep it on hand, unless they can be made available with the nurse on a beck in call basis. 

And don't believe everything you watch on Fantastico.   They have a reputation for glossing over facts for ages. 

KKKKK I found their comment interesting as well, until they showed the guy and the width of bite marks on his lower leg......maybe not 6 meters like a sucuri is, but still, bigger than normal.

Snakes freak me out.

And scorpions, and bugs.   It remindes me the movie flick , the Replacements wit Keanu Reeves.  Those hefty linebackers at the team meet.

Wear boots on the jungle, not matter what others say or do.

Snakes are frequent visitors at my urban and rural homes. In the city our most common visitors are true coral snakes (called Ibiboboca - Micrurus ibiboboca). While extremely venomous they are also non-aggressive (I easily catch/release them). Sure, you'll get bit if you step on one.

We've also had these visitors (urban):

Paraguay green racer or Cobra-Cipó (Philodryas nattereri)

Mexican vine snake or Cobra-Cipó-Mexicana (Oxybelis aeneus)

Rainbow Boa or Salamanta ou Jiboia-vermelha (Epicrates cenchria cenchria)

Lichtenstein's green racer or Cobra-verde (Philodryas olfersii)

Some form of Liotyphlops which is the size of an earthworm and here is called Cobra-cega or blind snake

Siphonops annulatus, the ringed caecilian (actually an amphibian but looks like a snake)

And there have been these visitors at our rural home:

Caatinga lancehead or Jararaca-Do-Sertão  (Bothrops erythromelas)

South American rattlesnake or Cascavel (Crotalus durissus)

Coral (Micrurus ibiboboca)

The very strange Two-headed snake or Boiacica (Amphisbaena alba)

Surely I've missed a few. And don't even start me on scorpions, spiders, the Lonomia (Tataruna) caterpillars and other marvels of this natural space.

I would say that one of the highlights for me of living in Brazil has been the diverse nature that is part of my day-to-day living. I've had other quick experiences in other parts of Brazil, from some pretty intense Amazon travels to the more mundane yet interesting visits to Butantã (their 70 thousand species collection collection before it burned in 2010), the Rio and also the Santos aquariums (no reptiles) and field trips with nature guides. There aren't many places for Brazilians to go to learn about nature but there are a few and some of those are pretty good.

We have a local place for environmental/reptile education for kids called Museu Vivo Répteis da Caatinga (@repteis_da_caatinga). Silvaney (the owner) has school kids visit (small fee) and is open for general audiences on Sundays (small fee) when he isn't off showing parts of his collection in shopping malls or city festivals. I highly recommend @repteis_da_caatinga if you are ever in the area (São José da Mata, Paraíba).

It is best to learn to like nature in all of its forms. Even snakes provide environmental services in their niche.

Short Wisconsin story: My brother-in-law (a herpetologist) got a job to assess a "rattlesnake problem" at a building site on the bluffs near Ferryville on the Mississippi River. After a complete analysis his report to the site owner was that they didn't have a "rattlesnake problem" but that the snakes had a landowner problem. The snakes had been there for centuries and somebody was trying to build a home on top of their home.

mberigan