Feb 8, 2009

Sporting Horns

The horned viper is a bitty little (one to two feet) African venomous viper, but he packs a wallop when it comes to the 'if looks could kill category'. Still, they are fairly docile, as far as vipers go. And they give you the courtesy of coiling into a C shape and rubbing their coils together when aggravated. Such visual and audible warnings are Mother Nature's gift to heavy-footed people like me who are prone to close encounters with rattlesnakes, feral cats, etc.




















As a sidenote: not all horned vipers are horned. Some, inexplicably, don't sport horns. How disappointing would that be as a horned viper? The one thing your species is known for, and you don't have it. I guess that would make you a plain ol' viper. You'd probably have to compensate elsewhere, just to distinguish yourself. Get belligerant, go vegan, something. But then you wouldn't be known as simply the 'hornless guy', but now as the 'cranky hornless guy' or 'vegan hornless guy'. You just can't win.

Thanks for the photos, Jelo.


8 comments:

Sabina E. said...

whoa. I'd never seen horned snakes before... I guess they're kind of cute in an ugly way.

Cat said...

There's nothing ugly about this snake!

The Gravekeeper said...

I think this is the first horned carnivore I've ever seen!

This thing isn't ugly in my opinion; bad-ass, yes, but not ugly. I'm sure it'd be quite beautiful to watch, too.

barba.de.molho said...

hey that's great

can you take a look at this video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPyxNoWK3dw&eurl=http://www.mundogump.com.br/&feature=player_embedded
it's a fish with human like teeth, so creepy haha

you blog is awesome !

Vanessa said...

That last guy isn't one of the vegan ones.
They are gorgeous.

Jessica Olin said...

I'm with Cat on this one. Not cute, really, but not ugly either. These lil' bits are beautiful.

Anonymous said...

They were on my 'cute-but-don't-touch' list until that last guy. Ew. Eat with your mouth closed, snake!

Anonymous said...

Dude these guys are friggin' awesome. <_< Just imagine stepping on one of those guys wombat. Even if the horns didn't somehow magically appear in the bottom of your foot, or in a leg, you'd get a leg full of fang shortly after. Lol.

I want one of these guys. Course, the whole 'poisonous' factor does have it's tough points. <_< But they obviously just need a little love, and some fang-caps. Lol.