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...
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.
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!
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.jpegThis wood is probably full of snakes still today, but in 1975 it was a true paradise for every snake lover!