Hello,
Many times we mentioned how hard is for our team to locate and capture new individuals for our study. Mostly we work with adult cobras. This time we were lucky. Our colleague, Tyler, encounter a juvenile spitter. Luckily for us it was moving in a fallow field and sheltered in a dirt crevasse. Nice and easy capture.
During last Sakaerat Najas Project late night survey we found Malayan Krait (Bungarus candidus). It is very venomous species active at night. This male was 1.3 m. Very yellow on ventral side of the body. Characteristic of this species are triangular body shape and bands that are equal size along all body (mimic species present in Thailand). In some part of the range snakes might be uniformly black. Venom of this species is potent. It has strong effect on nervous system. Tourniquet is needed in case of envenomation. Patient must be transported to the closest hospital. Always is best to leave all snakes alone or call for your local rescue crew. Remember killing them is dangerous.
On the night of 23.08.2017, we received a snake rescue call on a property from the village in which we work. We were informed that the boy who lived on the property heard their chickens were in distress. On inspection of the chicken coop, the boy found a cobra has envenomated one of the chickens. The boy had startled the snake as it had hooded at him and then made an escape.
Once we arrived at the scene, the chicken was found to have been bitten on the face and had to be euthanised at the scene to prevent any more suffering. A lot of effort was put into finding the snake by inspecting the property thoroughly by digging out any holes which the snake may be hiding, yet there was no luck.
We informed the residents of all information needed in case they encounter another cobra and told them do not hesitate to ring us if any snake returns.
The following day we received another call from the same residence saying a cobra was on the property. On arrival it was found that the cobra had returned to the exact same chicken coop. However, this time the snake had chose a toad as its meal, rather than chicken.
The snake noticed us and tried to make his escape, still with the toad in its mouth, but in its rush hit a wall and dropped its prey in the process. This enabled us to capture the snake and the toad. Remarkably, the toad survived for over 10 hours after envenomation.
Snake is a healthy adult male of Indochinese Spitting Cobra Naja siamensis.
After good amount of outreach local villagers were happy to hear about our project and allowed us to visit their property any time we need to radiotrack our snakes or look for new ones. Additionally they were persuading their neighbors about importance of our work in the village. LOVE IT.
With a lot of hard work and help from our short term intern Kawinwit Kittipalawattanapol, otherwise known as Ink, the project recently produced a new leaflet. Aimed at the villagers around the station, the pamphlet not only introduced the projects goals and aims, but also included important information on commonly encountered snake species in the area and snake bite first aid.
Once completed and printed, the next task was to get out into the village and hand them out. After some hard bargaining we managed to enlist the help of our two young thai speaking friends Leo and Hans, the sons of Bart’s PhD co-adviser Dr Jacques Hill, for the hefty price of a double scoop ice cream each. So with the deal made we headed out to meet and greet our neighbours and get the word out.
Happy World Snake Day! 🙂
Over the last few months we’ve had a decent number of Indochinese Spitting Cobras captured within the rural areas of Sakaerat Biosphere Research Centre. Things are a bit different with Monocled Cobras, which are found mainly in forested areas and are harder to encounter. That is why it was great news when one of our fellow researchers (Katie and Wyatt) noticed a big individual in the plantation forest.
The large male was crossing a dirt road before he was spooked by the researchers and retreated under a rock. It took a while but with the help of our colleagues Curtis was finally able to dig him out and capture him.
Naka021 proved to be the second biggest cobra we have had in our project at 1.5 kg and 1.75 m long.
This individual did not like to be handle at all and I must admit, it was the most ballsy kaouthia I ever worked with.
Additionally just two days before Wolfgang Wüster and friends published their paper
(https://www.facebook.com/Wolfgang.Wuster/videos/10155395596476462)
this snake spat twice during our planned photo session. Because of its attitude photos in studio were not possible, but luckily we managed to get some shots during the release of this magnificent individual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCkzKkpDG4k&t=5s
Hello.
One of the venomous species found around Sakaerat SERS station is Banded Krait (Bungarus fasciatus). This Is large species of the family Elapidae that can grow to over 2 m. This snakes are nocturnal animals. They feed mainly on other serpents. It is not easy to find them here.
Our colleague Tyler Knierim is conducting his master research on this species. Recently at lest one of his females was nesting and I was lucky enough to photograph two neonates in my studio. As you can see from the picture coloration of the neonates is more pale than adults individuals. They will gain more yellow colour with each shedding.
Kraits have a very interesting form of the defensive behavior. The hide their heads under the body coils while exposing their blunt ended tail. Once they will feel threaten they will strike energetically to the side.
Hope you enjoy the photos.
The last few months have been a busy time for our คณะวิจัยงูสะแกราชฯ – Sakaerat Conservation and Snake Education Team neighbours here at the Sakaerat Biosphere Research Centre, as its been the King Cobra (Ophiophagus hannah) breading season. At this time of year, the male Kings Cobras, fuelled by a burning desire to meet the lady of their dreams, are more than capable of moving several kilometers at pace cross country in their search. The hardy trackers on the SCSET team have been dragged here, there and everywhere by their lusty males but as usual have done a great job in keeping tabs on them.
Even for royalty there’s a correct way in which things are done, a male can’t just go steaming in for a bit of wham bam thank you ma’am action, without first seeing off his competition, and there is always plenty of that around. Now, as I’m sure you all know the King Cobra is the world’s largest venomous snake, so when the hormones begin to course and carnal desires stir, biting and envenomating one another just would not do, especially for one so regal. Another way is needed and being the intelligent and sophisticated animals they are, the King Cobras have come up with a far more civilized, graceful and sophisticated form of male to male combat. As can be seen in the amazing photos taken by Bartosz during his time as a guest of Gowri Shankar at the wonderful Kalinga Centre for Rainforest Ecology. The King Cobras engage in a wrestling match in which they entwine their long bodies and attempt to push down and pin their opponent to the ground. Such battles can last for several exhausting hours particularly if the males are evenly matched, but with luck to the winner goes the spoils of war, and a steamy night of passion with the lady who inspired their desires. For the looser, well at least such a civilised form of combat means that he lives to fight another day.
It’s not just the SCSET team that have their work cut out for them over the mating season. The rescue teams around Thailand like that of หมี กู้ภัยอุดมทรัพย์ อ.วังน้ำเขียว here in the area of the Sakaerat Reserve also have a busy time during these few months. The rescue teams many of which now contain skilled snake handlers having attended one of the SCSET rescue team snake handling courses, deal with most of the snake calls from the public, often getting call outs from concerned villagers when the one track minded snakes, start finding their way in and around people’s properties and homes in the search of a female. Thankfully, due largely to the great SCSET outreach work headed up by Prapasiri Sutthisom, villager’s perceptions of snakes around the area are starting to change slowly, and their first reaction more and more these days is to call the rescue teams or even the station itself to come and remove the snake rather than kill it.
Despite all the extra hard work for SCSET following the tracked King Cobras, all this movement does have some benefits for the snake research teams based here at the station. During this time, we ourselves on the Sakaerat Najas Project were able help and support our neighbours by finding and capturing two King Cobras whilst conducting active snake surveys. A feat which is very rare indeed with such an intelligent and cryptic species such as Ophiophagus hannah. Both animals have been passed on to SCSET, and the valuable data from these snakes is now included in their important work focusing on the research and conservation of the species within the Sakaerat Biosphere Reserve.
Whilst the prospect of even greater collaborative efforts is hoped for over the 6th and 7th of October when both the Sakaerat Najas Project and SCSET, together with researchers from around the world will be meeting in Veenendaal, The Netherlands for the first King cobra symposium, organized by Herpetofauna foundation to discuss and present their work and findings on these magnificent animals and other snakes as well. More information you can find at
http://www.kingcobrasymposium.com/
