The Whip Snake & The Lizard
The Machete couesse or Neotropical Whipsnake (Mastigodryas boddaerti) is an often seen Trinidad snake because it is terrestrial, diurnal, and often in open habitats. Mike Rutherford (UWI Zoology Museum) took these photos on February 28 on Paria Beach.The lizard is probably an Ameiva or Cnemidophorus. Mike writes, "
It was on the path when we came across it and stayed there for about three minutes, any time we came too close to it to get a photo it started to wriggle its tail. Eventually it swallowed enough of the lizard so it could move off with just the end of the lizards tail still sticking out of its mouth. It disappeared very quickly into the forest. This happened at around 1:30pm about 1/2km from Paria Beach on the 28th February. That day I also found a dead green turtle on Paria Beach, mostly buried in a sandbank and rotted away to just the skeleton, I dug out the skull and brought it back to the museum. And when we eventually reached Paria Waterfall we came across two naked Homo sapiens enjoying the sun, after a loud hello from me we allowed them to maintain their modesty and eventually they too disappeared into the bush!
Saw a Machette in Salybia at my feet on the track (2012 summer) on the way back from the Rio Seco Waterfall, not so special except it was hunting and trying to eat a smaller snake i was not able to identify, brown with lighter brown spots on it. Was happening at high speed. The two, attacker and retaliator-escapee disappeared into the bush.
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