Trivia question for Nov-17-2011

Olivia picked yet another snake for her trivia and this is one that we hope we don’t stumble across when we visit Africa.  These guys have the longest fangs of any snake, measuring up to 2-inches long.  They are also the heaviest of the world’s poisonous snakes, reaching weights of up to 25-lbs.

Primarily nocturnal, these guys have a reputation for being slow-moving and placid. They usually hunt by ambush, often spending long periods motionless, waiting for suitable prey to happen by. On the other hand, they have been known to hunt actively, mostly during the first six hours of the night. In Kumasi, Ghana, they were regularly killed around some stables in an open area with the forest some 500 meters away — a sign that they were hunting rats in the grassland. They are usually very tolerant snakes, even when handled, and rarely bite or hiss, unlike most of their species. However, bites by bad-tempered individuals do occur.

So here are Olivia’s questions:  Tell us what kind of snake this is and tell us what the horns on top of their broad snout is used for?  Also, tell us how many eggs the female of this species will lay at a time?

Good Luck 😉

Answer:

Congratulations goes out to Rehema from Tanzania (in Africa) for being the first with the correct answer, and we are sorry to hear about your dog getting bit by one of these guys. The snake we featured is the Gaboon Viper. They are also known as butterfly adder, forest puff adder, swamp-jack, Gaboon adder, and Gabon viper. Originally a name given by the Portuguese, Gabon (Gabão) refers to the estuary on which the town of Libreville was built, in Gabon, and to a narrow strip of territory on either bank of this arm of the sea.

The horn-like scales on the tip of the viper’s broad snout form what appear to be ‘horns,’ which have little use except for aiding in camouflage.  We also asked about the number of eggs the female lays but that was a trick question.  The fact is that they can have up to 80 (but usually between 20 and 60) live young at one time.  Here is more on these venomous snakes: Gaboon Viper

Thanks for playing along 😉