Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

For your reports/images, made outside Europe and the "Mediterranean" countries. Not to be too narrow minded and limited to our European/Mediterranean herps.

Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Ruggero M. » Tue Dec 02, 2014 5:11 pm

Thanks friends! :D

It was very difficult to post all the pictures here, because the web site "froze" every minute or so, and I had to reset the router every 2-3 pictures posted...
Only "fieldherping.eu" had this problem, while every other web site went very well in the same moments. Strange. (Off topic closed)

SE Asia is amazing, and for sure the triangle between Philippines, Borneo and Indonesia has the richest variety of coral and marine life in the world: the coral reefs I've seen in the Philippines (and in Micronesia and in Sipadan/Mabul) will last in my memory as my most beautiful natural experiences of all! :oops:
Which island did you visit in Thailand, Gabriel? It's not strange that king cobras are seldom met there: it's not a common view, unfortunately for us herpers, and, beyond this, many people can easily confuse them with the big Zaocys carinatus or Ptyas specimens! ;)
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Gabriel Martínez » Tue Dec 02, 2014 5:31 pm

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:Hold on, Gabri, are you saying you only went there to party!?


No Jeroen, a few party and MANY beaches :oops: (after Morocco and Iran, this year I ned to visit beaches to get a friendly girlfriend :lol: )

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:If you include amphibians (frogs!) I believe that title is likely to go to S America (but it's close and a silly comparison, of course).


Yes, maybe in amphibians South and Central America is better (in diversity, but in abundance is imposible to find in a place a species more common than Duttaprhynus melanosticus).

Jeroen Speybroeck wrote:This is where I'm hoping Peter will take me next April


I feel a lot of envy, pit vipers are really amazing! but, although they are more spectacular, I continue prefering our old world vipers (a nice young adult Daboia palaestinae or a juvenile Cerastes vipera of Tarfaya are too cool man!). Jeroen, you should visit north Africa and Middle East someday!!

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Which island did you visit in Thailand? It's not strange that king cobras are seldom met there: it's not a common view, unfortunately for us herpers, and, beyond this, many people can easily confuse them with the big Zaocys carinatus or Ptyas specimens!


Koh Samui. It´s a very touristic place. Many beaches, clubs, restaurants... I think that it´s more "natural" than Phiphi and other extreme touristic places, but anyway many tourist people (specially italian people everywhere in the island). In the island there are 2 "farms" of reptiles, one with the biggest King cobra of SE Asia (they say this in the advertinsing), so probably they capture all King cobras for the farms to keep money (I don´t know). Just in 1 day we found many snakes (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtne ... 942475378/). We drove in a small motorcycle so I am happy to not find in the road a huge reticulated Python!
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Ruggero M. » Tue Dec 02, 2014 8:13 pm

Gabriel Martínez wrote:Koh Samui. It´s a very touristic place. Many beaches, clubs, restaurants... I think that it´s more "natural" than Phiphi and other extreme touristic places, but anyway many tourist people (specially italian people everywhere in the island). In the island there are 2 "farms" of reptiles, one with the biggest King cobra of SE Asia (they say this in the advertinsing), so probably they capture all King cobras for the farms to keep money (I don´t know). Just in 1 day we found many snakes (https://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtne ... 942475378/). We drove in a small motorcycle so I am happy to not find in the road a huge reticulated Python!


The "unknown DOR snake" of your pictures seems to me a Bungarus.
Touristic places are not necessarily bad herping sites: the snakes could concentrate themselves in some areas and are sometimes easier to be met, differently from what happens in "pristine jungle" islands such as Tioman, which are obviously full of snakes, but very secretive and difficult to find. More tourism means also more habitat differentiation, more open areas, garbage and rats... :P
I don't know Samui, but I was in Phuket and a patient of mine (I'm a doctor) lives in Phuket some months every year. He says he met a king cobra along a road, and I think, by the description of the fact, the snake was almost 100% an actual king cobra.
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Gabriel Martínez » Wed Dec 03, 2014 10:31 am

Ruggero Morimando wrote:The "unknown DOR snake" of your pictures seems to me a Bungarus.


Thanks for the ID. When I saw you DOR Bungarus, I also though that our snake was same species or genus

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Touristic places are not necessarily bad herping sites: the snakes could concentrate themselves in some areas and are sometimes easier to be met, differently from what happens in "pristine jungle" islands such as Tioman, which are obviously full of snakes, but very secretive and difficult to find. More tourism means also more habitat differentiation, more open areas, garbage and rats... I don't know Samui, but I was in Phuket and a patient of mine (I'm a doctor) lives in Phuket some months every year. He says he met a king cobra along a road, and I think, by the description of the fact, the snake was almost 100% an actual king cobra.


Samui must be very similar to Phuket. Then next time I will visit Phuket and try for the King! :)
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Jeroen Speybroeck » Wed Dec 03, 2014 10:36 am

Gabriel Martínez wrote:Jeroen, you should visit north Africa and Middle East someday!!

It will happen ;) . First, I want some more jungle stuff. And then Madagascar. And then Australia. And then, and then, and then......
There's actually a tiny chance I might do a week in Morocco in October 2015. We'll see. Too many places.
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Paul Lambourne » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:22 pm

Ruggero,

Just caught up with this report, fantastic to see so many Asian species, loved the bufo melanisticus( one of my favourite species, and a memory of my early childhood, I was born in Singapore)

How you can say you don't like Asian pit vipers is beyond me, they are my favourite snakes, along with atheris... next you will be saying you dont like tea... :D

Love the purpureomaculatus, some stunning colour phases..and you cant go wrong with fucata,love those yellow eyes..

Mario, your Annaconda snake.. have you considered Enhydris enhydris..

Cheers

Paul
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Paul Lambourne » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:32 pm

Mario

Sorry, thought you were talking about the last snake, not the blotched one!

Cheers

Paul
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Re: Langkawi pit vipers (Malaysia)

Postby Ruggero M. » Thu Dec 04, 2014 9:21 pm

Paul Lambourne wrote:Ruggero,

Just caught up with this report, fantastic to see so many Asian species, loved the bufo melanisticus( one of my favourite species, and a memory of my early childhood, I was born in Singapore)

How you can say you don't like Asian pit vipers is beyond me, they are my favourite snakes, along with atheris... next you will be saying you dont like tea... :D

Love the purpureomaculatus, some stunning colour phases..and you cant go wrong with fucata,love those yellow eyes..

Mario, your Annaconda snake.. have you considered Enhydris enhydris..

Cheers

Paul



Thanks, Paul!

I must admit, I like every snake.
But: my love for snakes started when I was a very young boy with the first sight of a "big wild" snake. And that was an aesculapian snake: I recognized his beautiful brown colour, even if it disappeared misteriously (for me at that young age!) from my sight and I couldn't stop him or watch him closely. And that "vision" remains in my memory and my dreams.
So "dream snake" means for me a big, smooth, slender and elegant moving "colubrid-like" snake.
I love the aesculapian, but I like also the Ptyas, the Zaocys and, obviously, the king cobra, even if it's not a colubrid, but a "Giftnatter", as the german speaking people say. I like, in particular, long, smooth and slender snakes with whom one can interact: I mean handle and touch them!
I can handle a big colubrid, and I can touch and handle a king cobra, with the proper care and attention.
Viperid snakes are not smooth nor slender, are not elegant/fast moving (in the sense I like), are short and plump and extremely fast in biting, with very long and mobile poison teeth.
I handled european vipers and also some Trimeresurus, but I don't like them in the way I can like or handle a leopard-snake or an aesculapian snake, and touching their rough skin and their "soft" bodies does not give me the pleasure I reach touching the smooth and muscular body of a Ptyas or a red tailed racer.
That's all! I like vipers, but not so extremely as I like colubrids and some elapids. :P
I also like pythons, more than vipers, but less then colubrids: larger pythons are, besides all, also dangerous (even if not lethal) with their nasty bites! :oops:

P.S. This is the (wonderful) wood where, in 1975, I saw for the first time "my" aesculapian snake: http://www.terredelmincio.it/fotoGaller ... PRMIN.jpeg
This wood is probably full of snakes still today, but in 1975 it was a true paradise for every snake lover! :roll:
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