Came across what seemed to be a neat spiral lump of turd on the sandy mangrove floor. It was about 6.30pm and getting dark. It looked suspiciously like someone had an emergency and 'had to go'. Only this little lump began to move slowly. It was alive.
At first i thought this was a mangrove pit viper. It's colour was a deep dark brown close to black. However, the shape of the head was not as triangular as the pit vipers i had come across earlier. And it was on the ground. I had never seen a pit viper on sandy ground. All my mangrove pit viper sightings have been of the snake wrapped around the branches of a tree. This one, I was prepared to assume, had fallen from an overhanging tree branch.
It was eating something as it moved its head swallowing the item. My guess was that the snake was eating a crab. It soon finished swallowing the 'crab' and straightened itself out. It was about 45cm long and had a pale patch below the head on its underside. The bulge of the prey item in the snake's throat was clearly noticeable as it would slowly move further down the snake's digestive tract. It flicked out its tongue as it moved towards a sandy mound and into a hole in the mound before totally disappearing into it.
The crab-eating snake is mildly venomous but is of little risk to humans (like most snakes which prefer to shy away from people). It is rarely seen as it is a nocturnal hunter and it more commonly encountered as the light fades and after dark.
The crab-eating snake is mildly venomous but is of little risk to humans (like most snakes which prefer to shy away from people). It is rarely seen as it is a nocturnal hunter and it more commonly encountered as the light fades and after dark.
Read more about the Crab-Eating snake here :
