Re: NANFA-- More SC collecting - July 22, 2002

Roselawn Museum (roselawn_at_mindspring.com)
Thu, 25 Jul 2002 10:10:05 -0400

Yep, that puts a whole new twist on "a shot in the dark." There is nothing
quite like the jungle (any jungle) at night. The cycles of life and death
play out constantly all around you. When I wasn't preoccupied with the task
of not getting killed, I was fascinated by some of the things I saw in
'Nam. After living in the bush for awhile, I acquired a much better
appreciation of creature comforts. Living in American suburbia is a sterile
environment by comparison. But to bring this back where we started...as
long as there are leeches, I'll wear waders or a wetsuit. If the candiru
ever expand their range this far north, I'll add strategic placement of
duct tape. (-:

Steven A. Ellis
Kennesaw, GA

At 01:29 PM 7/25/02 GMT, you wrote:
>> Right there in the picture was an actively swimming Coral snake.
>
>This reminds me of one of my Amazon adventures. We were hiking
>through the jungle at night, and two of us, me and a Vancouver herp
>student named Brent, got separated from the group. Under the nights of
>our headlamps, we were sampling a small rainpool. A snake slithered
>around our dipnet. Brent, who was hoping to finance some of this trip by
>taking wildlife photos and selling them to photo stock houses, wanted to
>catch the snake so that he could photograph it. Unfortunately, we weren't
>properly outfitted for catching snakes in the dark. I held the light while
>Brent poked through the bottom mud of the pool, hoping to the scare the
>snake into the dipnet. He scared the snake alright. As Brent tried to grab
it,
>it planted its fangs into Brent's wrist. Not all the way, but far enough.
>Suffice it to say, the snake got away.
>
>"You didn't just happen to notice what kind of snake that was?" Brent
>asked.
>
>I know next to nothing about snakes, but knew there were only 2 species
>in this section of the rainforest we had to worry about. The bushmaster
>(which this obviously was not), and the (banded?) coral snake, which lives
>in water.
>
>"Well," I said, feeling a deep sense of dread moving in upon us, "It had
>bands and lives in the water."
>
>"I don't think he really got me, but just in case...."
>
>Brent pulled from his back-pack an anti-venom kit, basically a syringe big
>enough to inject a horse. We were about a mile's hike back to base camp.
>
>"We'll walk back slowly," Brent said. "And if anything starts to happen to
>me, just pull down my pants and give me the shot."
>
>"Okay," I said. I had never injected anyone with a needle before, except
>myself, by accident. (I was dogsitting a diabetic dog and had to give it
daily
>insulin injections. One day the dog squirmed and I plunged the needle
>into the hand that was attempting to hold the dog still. Ouch.)
>
>Anyhow, it was the longest one-mile hike in my life. And Brent's. But we
>made it back to camp just fine. We told our nature guide, Segundo, what
>happened, and I drew a little sketch of the snake's pattern.
>
>"Oh, that's the *false* banded coral snake," Segundo said. "Harmless."
>
>Which was a good thing, because I had no desire to see Brent's ass.
>
>Chris Scharpf
>Baltimore

---
>/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
>/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
>/ Association"
>/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
>/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
>/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
>/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
>/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
>/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
/"Unless stated otherwise, comments made on this list do not necessarily
/ reflect the beliefs or goals of the North American Native Fishes
/ Association"
/ This is the discussion list of the North American Native Fishes Association
/ nanfa_at_aquaria.net. To subscribe, unsubscribe, or get help, send the word
/ subscribe, unsubscribe, or help in the body (not subject) of an email to
/ nanfa-request_at_aquaria.net. For a digest version, send the command to
/ nanfa-digest-request_at_aquaria.net instead.
/ For more information about NANFA, visit our web page, http://www.nanfa.org