28 September 2007

Snakes...Yikes!!!!

Here's another one for my boys. We've had a couple of reptilian encounters lately. The other night, one of our interpreters was coming out of the bathroom and almost stepped on this...




He came running in shouting in Pashtu and finally composed himself enough to blurt out "SNAKE" in English. This is a Saw-Scale Viper (Echis carinatus). It is one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. In fact, some argue that it is THE most dangerous because of its combination of a potent venom and generally grumpy disposition. It's venom is a highly potent hemotoxin and it has a really short fuse. To tell the truth, it has short-man disease. They only get about 2 feet long at most and I guess it feels like it has something to prove. I didn't get a very good picture because I didn't want to get too close for obvious reasons.


The other snake is this one...



It's an Indian Rat Snake (Ptyas mucosa). It's essentially the Afghani version of a chicken snake. At first, we thought it might be an Asiatic cobra (Naja oxiana), but it's not. It's about 5 feet long. The Afghan guys who do security here caught it and are keeping it as a pet in a box.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

O.K. wonderful for education, but still don't like any of them. Hope they can't bite taller than your boots. Keep a good out out for that first one. Yikes!

Heather said...

The boys loved it babe! They want more pictures. Charlie says you sound like Jeff Corwin- Luke said, "Jeffco? Dad's with JeffCo?"
Toooofunny!

AmyWhit said...

Ick! I assume the first one was disposed of?! I sure hope so. I HATE snakes, and we've had quite a few "reptilian encounters" here in the past couple of weeks. They are cutting the pine trees behind our house, and I guess they're running the snakes out! We had one on our porch, Adam and Shanon had one on their porch, and we killed a baby copperhead in our garage. At least we think it was a copperhead. It was kind of hard to identify him after mom got finished smashing him with the hoe!

Judy said...

Hey honey..we are at the motel and due to some airline rearranging we are stuck here until get this...1am sat moring...but we got a shorter flight (only 11 hrs.w/ layovers) and a refund of 230.00 that was the good part also your dad got a little sick Trursday night so it worked out pretty good..he sure did not feel like flying..it's getting cloder by the second and the snow is coming down the Mt fast...Sissy will pull out after Jacob's game on Sunday and drive to Tok, Ak (3-4 hour drive)..spend the night there and then set out across Canada.. she will pick up stuff from AAA that they say is great help for the long drive.We have limited access to internet from the motel..but I will contact you when we get home..thank God for good friends who are kind and are helping us at home. Have spoken to Heather and the boys a couple of times..and for heavens sake watch under your feet...stay away from the snakes..I'm not scared of them but have a healthy respect for those who mean business..Love you more than you know..we are good and don't worry..or fuss at me..we are doing the best we can with communication...Love Mom & Dad