Small snakes, variable bush vipers are adult at from 18 to 24 inches in length.
Meet Africa’s non-eyelashed, muilticolored viperine answer to the crotaline Eyelashed Pit Viper of Central and South America! This is the variable bush viper, Atheris squamiger. An arboreal species, this 18 to 24 inch long viperine is most at home in forest shrubs rather than canopy reaching trees.

Although in some populations the color of the variable bush viper may be a rather standardized olive-green, in other locales the variations in coloration are nothing short of remarkable. In these latter the little snakes may be of some shade of green, orange, russet, cinnamon, blue, yellow, charcoal, or brownish. Some may even be of one color dorsally and a second color laterally. And on any of these colors the snake may or may not bear a vague or prominent dorsal pattern of dark-edged, darker than ground color, dorsal saddles or chevrons. The belly may vary from immaculate to heavily spotted. Have I yet described a variability sufficient to warrant the name? I would certainly think so.

Atheris squamiger occurs in tropical West and Central Africa

This snake will bite if threatened and envenomation has resulted in human death.

Mussels and crayfish beware. You are being searched for.
Rapids, calm, more rapids then more calm. Kelly and I were on the 7-Point River, now searching for, among other things, common map turtles, Graptemys geographica. Still an hour or so before dusk, robins were already chirruping their evening songs and red bats were flitting in quest of insects just a few feet above the water.

Thanx to Kelly and another AR GFC biologist, both of whom dove deeply to check on Ozark hellbenders, Cryptobranchus bishopi, I had already had an opportunity to see and photo one of these huge salamanders. Throughout that float we had been watched by raccoon, a mink, and taunted by common map turtles that rose from the depths almost, but not quite, in reach from the boat.

But now we had a longer net that I hoped would increase our chance of getting up close and personal with one of these chelonians. It didn’t. They continued to surface but as if divining our intent, all were now even more distant. Well, darn.

While not the largest of the genus, the common map turtle is big. Females attain a 10” carapace length and males are between 4 and 6” in shell length. Females, mollusk and crustacean eaters, develop the enlarged head associated with such a diet. IOW, they are an impressive turtle. And I had just about decided I was going to have to leave with no photo.

But Lady Luck was with us. Just as we beached a big female map turtle came trudging down the sandy bank. Probably returning to the river from a nesting, pix were taken, and we, turtle and humans, went merrily on our individual ways.

Thanx again, Kelly. Yours is a beautiful region.