So, you want a puff adder?

"Dick," Ken said,"I've decided to part with my puff adder (Bitis arietans). Would you want it?"

I knew this to be a beautiful snake that was in perfect health so, although I had no experience with anything more sinister than a northern copperhead, after an impassioned plea to my mother (I was still living at home then), the answer was yes, yes indeed, I did want the snake.

And thus began the first of my many experiences with the variable and hardy puff adder. I had read of their proclivity for burrowing and within a few days I had watched this heavy bodied snake shuffle its way beneath leafy litter and well down into its sandy substrate. I had learned that it was an accomplished ambush predator, the venom of which could kill a food rodent within seconds. I was certain that it was not a snake that would want to run afoul of. I watched it strike forward from a lateral "S," and I found that it could strike quickly and accurately to either side and occasionally for a few inches straight up.

That was my first puff adder, but certainly not my last. And from that snake my interest burgeoned to the numerous congenerics, to Gaboon vipers, rhinoceros vipers, horned adders, and more, all subjects of future posts!

More photos under the jump...

When placed on a loose sand substrate, a puff adder will usually begin burrowing almost immediately: Within a minute, this puff adder had become an easily overlooked part of the landscape:

Author, photographer, and columnist Richard Bartlett is one of the most prolific writers on herpetological subjects in the 20th century. With hundreds of books and articles to their credit, Richard and his wife Pat have spent over four decades documenting reptiles both in the field and in captivity. For a list of their current titles, please visit their page in our bookstore.