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Venezuela Trip
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by HerpFever45 on October 27, 2004
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Thanks so much for your help guys! The information was really helpful. To answer your question surucucu, I am planning on arriving at Maracaibo in August 2005 and later head to adjacent areas of San Fernando de Apure in southwestern Venezuela, possibly the llanos, and Puerto Ordaz in mid-eastern Venezuela. I am hoping to team up with professionals from a certain university although I haven't made any contacts yet. Hey, paleoherp and CASSAICA, you both seem to know a lot about these snakes and I was wondering if you could please tell me which of the seven Bothrops are found in the afore-mentioned areas and how I could differentiate them. Please answer.
thanks again,
Bryan
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RE: Venezuela Trip
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by Snakeman1982 on October 27, 2004
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The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere by Campbell and Lamar is the best book for anything venomous. It is awesome and has all the info you should need on venomous snakes. Though it isn't really a field guide type book. It is too big but has tons of info like habitat association, natural history, etc...
Here are the species it lists:
Leptomicrurus collaris
Micrurus circinalis
Micrurus dissoleucus
Micrurus dumerilii
Micrurus hemprichii
Micrurus isozonus
Micrurus lemniscatus
Micrurus meridensis
Micrurus mipartitus
Micrurus psyches
Micrurus remotus
Micrurus spixii
Micrurus surinamensis
Bothriechis schlegelii
Bothriopsis bilineata
Bothriopsis medusa
Bothriopsis taeniata
Bothrops asper
Bothrops atrox
Bothrops brazili
Bothrops venezuelensis
Lachesis muta
Porthidium lansbergii
Crotalus durissus
Dr. Wuster (Caissaca) along with a few other systematists would probably prefer that Bothriopsis remain as Bothrops, it gets debated back and forth but almost all pubs acknowledge Bothriopsis, so don't be confused by that if you see a species in multiple genera.
I too am very interested in tropical herpetology and will be spending a month in Bolivia in about 6 or 7 weeks to survey some regions for herpetofauna. Venezuela is certainly a country I plan on checking out in the next few years so I have some literature on it but not much. I am more interested in the Guyanas region of Venezuela though, that is where the Tepuis are at and they have very interesting ecological niches on them. They are very hard to get to and quite a few more new species are certainly around there.
I checked out a book this summer by Janis Roze that was pretty old. It is in spanish and from the 70's I believe. It was called "La zoogeografica de los ofidios en Venezuela", or something like that. Its entirely in Spanish but the scientific names are useful. I only know a little spanish so I couldn't successfully read it. Although it is pretty outdated, it may be the best field guide for non-venomous species. You should certainly be able to find it in a year before your trip.
Also, check out "Amphibian & Reptile Conservation" Volume 2 Number 2. It is a small journal publication that is pretty good but has had few prints. If you can get ahold of that particular issue it should be cheap but hard to find. The special feature is Venezuela and it lists every single species of herp in Venezuela (252 Amphibians and 299 Reptiles!!!) along with which geographic region the herps are found in.
181 Amphibian and 119 Reptile endemics (found no where else).
There are also good field guides for birds of Venezuela so you should definitely buy one of those. "Birds of Venezuela" should be a good one.
So I would consider buying those 4 items before your trip.
Also check out some publications by Duellman. He has done extensive work in S.A. I think he had a guide for upper Amazonia.
Good luck finding people to go with. It can be hard sometimes.
Robert
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RE: Venezuela Trip
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by CAISSACA on October 28, 2004
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Hi Bryan,
Around Maracaibo, you will get Bothrops atrox, C. durissus and Porthidium lansbergii, and, just possibly, some isolated population of B. asper. B. asper and B. atrox will be difficult to differentiate - check the width of the postocular stripe, in B. atrox, it normally encroaches onto the last three supralabials, whereas in B. asper, it is much narrower and only encroaches on the last supralabial. This seems to hold even in the Venezuelan B. atrox specimens that otherwise look more like B. asper than B. atrox.
San Fernando de Apure: Prob. no Bothrops, they seem to be absent from that part of the llanos. Crotalus durissus occurs.
Puerto Ordaz: Just Bothrops atrox, the forest species (B. bilineatus, taeniatus, brazili etc.) don't seem to make it that far north, according to the maps of Campbell & Lamar.
If you want to be sure to see a B. atrox, the best place I can think of is Portuguesa state in the upper llanos - email me if you want details.
Cheers,
Wolfgang
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RE: Venezuela Trip
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by paleoherp on October 28, 2004
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hey i would just like to add that there are other books other then the venomous reptiles of the western hemisphere that cover a few snakes in venezuela .
checklist and key to the snakes of venezuela / lista sistematica clave para las serpienta de venezuela
Paul M Kornacker
this book is 270 pages long and provides info for all 182 species of snakes found in venezuela. if you can not yet afford the venomous reptiles of the western hemisphere this would be a great book to take to venezuela.
Another book is :
Die schlangan van venezuela. is written in german . 1989.
hope this helps ya. these books can be orded online at www.nhbs.com
SHAUN
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