Terciopelo
Bothrops asper
— Where the name comes from
Bothrops is “pit face”, from bóthros, the hollow, and ṓps: the pit between eye and nostril that senses heat and gives its name to the whole pit viper family. Asper means “rough”. The common name translates the French fer-de-lance, the head of the lance, for the triangular shape of the head.
— Facts
- Group
- Reptiles · Reptilia
- Order
- Squamates
- Habitat
- Rainforest, banana and coffee plantations, riverbanks
- Range
- From southern Mexico to Ecuador and Venezuela
- Size
- 120–180 cm, up to 250 cm; 3–6 kg
- Diet
- Rodents, frogs, lizards, birds
- Lifespan
- 15 years
— Characteristics
- 01
It bears up to ninety young, venomous and independent from birth.
- 02
The young have a yellow tail tip they wriggle to attract frogs.
- 03
It is active at night and hides among roots and leaves by day.
— What sets it apart
It sends more people to hospital than any other snake in Central America, and the reason lies in how the land is worked: it lives where bananas and coffee grow, that is where somebody walks barefoot or swings a machete through the leaves. In Costa Rica the Clodomiro Picado institute has produced a specific antivenom since the 1970s that has cut mortality to almost nothing and that is now exported across half of Africa: a small country became one of the world’s leading antivenom producers by starting from its own problem at home.
