Schneider's dog-faced water snake (Cerberus schneiderii), Pasir Ris;
According to Chinese astrology, this year is associated with the Element of Water, so it's supposed to be the Year of the Water Snake.
To wrap up the Year of the Dragon, I was supposed to publish a series of posts about lizards. As usual, I haven't had the time and energy to complete them, and as a result, I haven't been able to start another series to celebrate the Year of the Snake. Oh well. I'm still working on them.
In the meantime, here are some older posts that I've written about various snakes found in Singapore. And yes, many of them were inspired by submissions to that bastion of citizen journalism, STOMP.
Snakes in general
Pythonidae
Reticulated python (Broghammerus reticulatus);
(Photo by Marcus)
- 10 ft python found at Pasir Ris HDB void deck
- Snake found in Yuan Ching Sec
- Snake on the loose slithers down Woodlands street
- Beware of pythons in S'pore: Just look at this snake swallowing a kangaroo
- Pythons in my neighbourhood
- Yikes! Snake found in my QQ
- Snake spotted on Upper Thomson Rd
- Python spotted in Bukit Panjang drain during heavy downpour
- Python crushes cat to death at Bukit Panjang
- Heroic uncle catches snake with his bare hands at Jurong
Colubridae
Striped kukri snake (Oligodon octolineatus);
(Photo by Anne Devan-Song)
Paradise tree snake (Chrysopelea paradisi);
(Photo by hiker1974)
Indochinese rat snake (Ptyas korros);
(Photo by berniedup)
Elapidae
Equatorial spitting cobra (Naja sumatrana);
(Photo by LemonTeaYK)
King cobra (Ophiophagus hannah);
(Photo by myrontay)
As you can see, these posts cover only a select few species. Besides my posts, you can also look at the now-inactive Singapore Snakes Blog, which has a lot of useful and interesting content about some of Singapore's snakes. Too bad it hasn't been updated in years, and the comments have been clogged up by spammers.
I'm intending to write a bunch of posts that will eventually provide an overview of the diversity of snakes found in Singapore, as well as some information on how to coexist with these often maligned creatures.
To commemorate the Year of Snake, the Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (ACRES) has also provided some tips on what to do if a snake is encountered.
Here's wishing everyone good fortune and prosperity, and may more people take a more enlightened stance towards snakes, which frankly don't always warrant such fear, paranoia, and ignorance.
