Stepping out onto the city streets of Bangkok is an assault on the senses. It’s the smell that hits you first- Spicy food cooking down the street, diesel fumes, and incense burning somewhere. Two green and yellow taxis nearly collide at an intersection, followed by a loud exchange of Thai insults, their voices drowned out by electronic music thumping in the distance. Most people would describe this as chaos, but to me it was paradise. My mind was racing with thoughts of all the herpetofauna just waiting to be found.
My Girlfriend, Ashton, and I hailed a cab with no destination – just headed toward the general outskirts of the city. Our friend, Jesse Goodyear, had been living in Thailand for about a year and was busy teaching a class at a nearby university. I had directions to the general area where we would be staying, but addresses in Thailand are unreliable to say the least. The weathered cabdriver spoke no English, and I only knew very basic Thai words and phrases. After an exhausting hour of pointing, following turn-by-turn directions on my phone, and lots of backtracking, we finally made it to our hostel. By this point, the driver and I were laughing like children from the confusion and mime style communication. Ashton was not nearly as impressed. She was understandably tired and frustrated. I paid him the fare and slipped him a generous tip before we parted ways. Exhausted from a 20-hour flight, we opted to sleep until dusk.
The Neighborhood Comes Alive
The area surrounding the hostel was made up of many gated communities, bisected by large, open, wooded lots. It was obvious that this was not a working-class neighborhood. Some houses had water features and lush green gardens, and many had European cars parked in the driveways and along the street. This was the kind of place I could see myself retiring to. Many of the homes here were surrounded by 8-10ft concrete and stucco walls, while directly next door were large undeveloped lots full of construction debris and the remnants of old structures. These overgrown parcels were thick with native evergreen plants and vines, undoubtedly acting as corridors for wildlife. We set out on foot to target these areas.
Just a few steps outside the hostel, we began shining an empty square lot, planted with banana trees in even rows. Some trees were tall and fruiting, while others were well started in five-gallon buckets, fading Thai labels still attached. I shined every banana tree and shrub as we walked. Out of my peripheral, I saw an odd shade of green draped across one of the broad leaves. Snake! Loosely coiled across the leaf was a gorgeous little White-lipped pit viper (Trimeresurus albolabris). This species is a brilliant yellow-green and is easily seen in contrast to the green foliage.
However, distinguishing the myriad of other green-colored snakes from the surrounding green foliage can be a real challenge. Movement, shape, and subtle color differences will give them away if you take time to scan an area close. This is much easier said than done.
Not long after, I heard Jesse yell up ahead. When I reached him, he had his light on a long, slender, green phase Asian Vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) perched atop some hedges, adjacent to a Home. Seeing this species in person was amazing. It didn’t take long to see what had drawn the snake to the bushes. Several diurnal Oriental Garden Lizards (Calotes sp.) lay sleeping and motionless in the crooks of branches making themselves easy prey. This genus is highly variable. We later found bone white adults, bright yellow and slate gray juveniles.
It sat staring at me with horizontal pupils, tongue held straight out-seemingly frozen in time. I must have gotten a little too close because before I knew it, the snake had latched onto my middle finger. They have a very strong bite for such a slender snake! I cleaned the tiny scratches left on my fingertip as it slipped into the hedgerows, disappearing like a ghost.
We made it to the wooded lot just in time for the frogs and geckos to begin to call. The unmistakable “TO-KAY- TO-KAY” Onomatopoeic call caught my attention. Scurrying across a stucco wall was a large Tokay Gecko (Gekko gecko). The tokays in this area have a whitish-blue skin with bright orange spots. The males are much more vibrant than the females. These geckos are very attractive, but not easy to catch. They have jaws like vice grips. It’s a good idea to grab behind the head of the largest specimens. A large individual of 12-14” is not unheard of!
Passing yet another open lot, my flashlight beam reflected off some scattered tin underpinning and I saw a coiled greenish body laying across it. Before I could take a step into the brush, I saw another blue-green body lying in the leaf litter. In all, 3 Large-eyed pit vipers (Trimeresurus macrops) lay in ambush around the tin. This species appears to be much more common than their White-lipped cousins in Bangkok, which is not the case in other areas of Thailand. While neither the T. macrops or T. albolabris are likely to kill you, they do have a painful venom that is procoagulant and some deaths have been reported – albeit very rarely. The type locality given for T. macrops is “Bangkok, Thailand” so it was interesting to see them here.
We followed Jesse into the thick undergrowth of the vacant lot. A small dirt path led us to the bank of a narrow canal, one of hundreds that pass through Bangkok and into surrounding areas for crop irrigation. Here, the trees grew larger and the ground more open. Several termite mounds rose out of the ground like stalactites. Perched atop one of the mounds was a heavy bodied Banded Kukri snake (Oligodon fasciolatus). This individual was clean and highly iridescent. Not at all the way I had imagined this species to look. I was careful to keep my hands away from this one. Kukri snakes are known for their knife shaped-teeth and nasty bite.
Bending down to photograph the kukri snake, I saw some movement at the base of a tree. A large Asian Painted Frog (Kaloula pulchra) was gobbling up ants as they scurried across the forest floor; an interesting natural history observation. I suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that I was being watched. Looking up, I spotted a large Asian Water monitor (Varanus salvator) looking down on us from the crook of the tree. These monitors were seen throughout our trip and some of the largest inhabit parks and canals right in Bangkok.
Photo: Takano Akitoshi
As I turned to walk away I saw an owl staring down at me from another tree. It was odd to see an owl in this tropical habitat. The Oriental Bay Owl (Phodilus badius) resembles a giant eastern screech owl from the U.S.
Seeing all the wildlife moving after dark had everyone excited. There was talk of reticulated pythons found throughout the area with seemingly no correlation. They could be anywhere. Jesse told us that he had seen several since moving to the area. Anywhere that there is sufficient food and cover, pythons can be found. Many of the feral dogs sleeping on the streets of Bangkok are likely eaten, along with rats living in the trash that is all too often dumped in abandoned lots. I later heard many stories throughout the country of pythons eating household pets. Domestic animals like cats and dogs don’t stand a chance outside at night.
Photo: Takano Akitoshi
It was hard to wrap my mind around. The giant pythons I had read about as a kid in books like Sherman Minton’s Giant Reptiles, could be all around us. As I child I was amazed by stories of 20ft snakes being found deep in some remote jungle. 20 years later and here I am, walking amongst them. How many had I missed, coiled and camouflaged in the tall grass?
Jesse mentioned his motorbike back at the hostel and we all agreed that that would be our best shot to cover ground.
Ashton, standing just at five feet tall, managed to squeeze between us on the small moped. The three of us crammed onto the tiny moped was quite a sight! I’m sure people would laugh in your neighborhood, but in Thailand, we fit right in. We had seen entire families and their groceries piled onto a single Vespa in the city.
We cruised through several neighborhoods, scanning all the usual haunts- Abandoned concrete structures, hedgerows and canal banks. I was interested to hear that pythons in Bangkok have been seen using storm drains and sewers to move from one area to another in search of food, often too fat to squeeze back into the drains with a heavy food bolus. This species seems to have a higher intelligence than many other snakes. Anyone who has kept this species in captivity has likely observed this.
We rounded a corner on a paved road that separated the main subdivision from a low depression swamp covered in tall reeds. Up ahead, the fluorescent light of a 7-eleven store shown in the distance. An old man in a straw hat rode past on a bicycle. He had a stick in one hand and a headlight. We watched as he stopped to noose a sleeping Oriental Garden Lizard (Calotes sp.), likely for the food markets in town.
As we drove on, Jesse’s spot light passed over a large tail about to disappear into the reed grass. We abandoned the moped as fast as possible and dove into the grass. Within seconds, we were wrestling a 14ft Reticulated Python (Malayopython reticulatus) up the grassy dike where we could get the situation under control. It was a surreal moment, holding this massive snake with streetlights behind me. A childhood dream come true. The python struck wildly at first but quickly settled down. The snake was everything I had imagined my first wild Retic to be and more. Her bright yellow head was a striking contrast to the geometric body pattern; a Thai retic at its finest. Upon inspection of the snake, we found a tick attached to the head and removed it. Everyone wanted to get a picture with the snake and she seemed rather calm, since she had tired out trying to flee. We never restrained the big girl and she seemed to just watch us cautiously, giving a big hiss every so often. After a moment of admiration, we watched her slip back into the reeds.
The next day, we were joined by our friends, Micah Earnest of Austin, Texas and Takano “Habu” Akitoshi of Ginowan, Okinawa, Japan. We went on to travel across Thailand on an incredible Field Herping trip, finding so many amazing animals along the way. For me though, the nights spent roaming the suburbs in search of reptiles with great friends, keep me longing for the next trip.
Erin Ferguson is a Field Herper and citizen naturalist from eastern Kentucky. He contributes species occurrence and distribution data in his home state and to museum databases.
