Bernie Krause wrote:
> Don't trust those instincts in Costa Rican or Panamanian rainforests
> at night, Rob, where the beautiful fer de lance can be found lurking
> under a pile of leaves or on the far side of a log you happen to be
> stepping over in the dark. The fer de lance is a three minute snake.
> Just hope that there's a two minute one around if you happen to run
> into the first.
>
Yowza. One day in Trinidad I noticed a fellow traveler trying to get
a photo of a medium-sized snake. It wasn't moving around enough so he
"encouraged" it with a short stick - by short I mean shorter than the
snake. It moved a bit into the light and he took the picture from about
1 1/2 snakes distance.
That night at the lodge we admired some old photos on the wall and
realized he had been teasing a fer-de-lance which, as the caption said,
is one of the most aggressive and quick poisonous snakes in the world.
My friend died in bed 15 years later, but I bet he was *still* shaking.
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Chuck Bragg, Pacific Palisades, CA
Membership, Newsletter, Web manager
Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society
www.smbas.org
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