Boomslang
Dispholidus typus
— Where the name comes from
Boomslang is Afrikaans and means simply “tree snake”. Typus indicates that it is the type species of its genus. Dispholidus is built from Greek elements alluding to the scales and the teeth — and it is the teeth that matter: they sit at the back of the mouth, and for a century that was taken to mean the animal could hurt nobody.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Squamates
- Habitat
- Wooded savannah, thickets, gallery forest
- Range
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Size
- 120–160 cm, 175–510 g
- Diet
- Chameleons, birds, eggs, frogs, geckos
- Lifespan
- 8 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It has enormous eyes and among the best eyesight of any snake.
- 02
The male is bright green and the female brown: they look like two species.
- 03
The venom acts slowly on the clotting of the blood.
— What sets it apart
On 25 September 1957 the herpetologist Karl Patterson Schmidt was bitten on a finger by a young specimen at the Chicago museum. Convinced, as all his colleagues then were, that this species’ venom was negligible, he went home and began noting hour by hour what was happening to him: nausea, chills, blood from the nose and gums, dark urine. He wrote until the following morning, then died. His clinical diary, published immediately afterwards, changed the assessment of rear-fanged snakes across the world.
