Name: Matthew R.
Status: other
Age: 30s
Location: N/A
Country: N/A
Date: 5/25/2004
Question:
Perhaps Mabel Rodriguez could help
me with this one...
I was in Brazil last month in the Atlantic
rainforest between Rio and Sao
Paulo and saw an enormous snake about 2 meters
long. It was thick and
mostly black with specks of yellow as it moved. It
was yellow on the
bottom with a narrow head. It crawled out from
under a waterfall (where I
was showering) and calmly and slowly climbed up a
tree. Any idea what type of snake this was?
Replies:
Hi Matt!
Probably the snake you saw was the one with vulgar name Caninana, scientific name:Spilotes pullatus, english name Rat snake.
It is a non-poisonous snake quite common in Brazil. Its habitat are usually trees close to rivers and lakes. Their food are small birds, lizards and small rodents. Oviparous can lay around 12-18 eggs. It is not dangerous but if irritated can give a small bite. Their length goes up to almost 3 m.
By the way, if you ask www.google.br (in portuguese) by caninana, you can see very beautiful pictures of that snake.So you can see if it is really it!
Thanks for remembering my name... and come back to
Brazil.
NEWTON is an electronic community for Science, Math, and Computer Science K-12 Educators, sponsored and operated by Argonne National Laboratory's Educational Programs, Andrew Skipor, Ph.D., Head of Educational Programs.
