Monday, April 13, 2009

An unwelcome guest

This morning brought more excitement than I'm generally interested in before my coffee.  It came in the form of a 1 meter fer-de-lance (Bothrops asper) sunning himself (herself?) outside my room. Fer-de-lance are highly venomous and have the reputation for being quite aggressive.  Take a look here if you want nightmares:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tissue_necrosis_following_bite_from_Bothrops_asper_PLoS_Medicine.jpg  
I'd only ever seen one, very small one on BCI before today, which I'm generally quite thankful for. I have to say that it was beautiful (hopefully I'll have tracked down some photos of it by tomorrow--I didn't have my camera nearby).  However, it posed an interesting conundrum:  what do you do with a very dangerous animal that is hanging out in an area where people in flip-flops and bare legs are walking at all times of day?  Most places in Panama, you'd just kill it, but that seems somewhat inappropriate in a nature reserve. .  .  So, do you behead the fer-de-lance on your front steps? or try to move it, and put the unlucky person who draws the short straw at risk as they try to move it?

2 comments:

Mindy said...

The picture of the boy's leg on the link was frightful!!

Jenny said...

I dont know what i'd do if i met up with one of those snakes! ugh