Roadkill Tuesday Ride – Dead Snakes Abound

I had some time the other day around lunch to do some road cruising here around my home in Thailand. The rain hasn’t really started very seriously here yet. We’ve had maybe 3 strong, but short, rains since the rainy season began back in early May. What it’s waiting for, I’m not sure, but it isn’t helping the snakes to come out and play.

I have been seeing some neonate snakes flopping around on the roads lately. The C. radiata are always common in the early season – May and June. I’ve started to see some hatchling P. korros as well now.

Anyway, I figured I’d go drive around and see what is getting hit on the roads. I’m not a day herper – I only go at night, so it was interesting to cruise around on the motorbike and look for snakes. I found plenty. In just an hour and twenty minutes, I found around ten snakes.

There were more, but I just couldn’t stop in the middle of busy vehicle traffic to go check them out. I saw maybe another four snakes I couldn’t get to.

It’s a bit sad to see so many dead snakes in such a short amount of time. I think about how many were hit and were able to still get off the road into the brush, where they died. Must have been at least as many, probably more since most snakes after being hit by a car can still keep going a bit. Snakes are hard to kill and would need a headshot to die quickly.

OK, I won’t keep you in suspense. Here are the snakes I found that I could identify (to the best of my ability):

2 – C. rhodostoma (Malayan pit viper)
1 – P. korros (Indo-Chinese rat snake)
1 – T. albolabris (White lipped pit viper)
1 – A. prasina (Oriental whip snake)
1 – L. laoensis (Laotian wolf snake)
1 – X. unicolor (Sunbeam snake)
2 – C. ornata (Golden tree snake)
2 – could not identify

Just this morning taking my daughter to school we saw two more Malayan pit vipers and a small black snake, maybe P. korros – we couldn’t stop to check it out.

Thailand Roadcruising Video: