A portrait of the beautiful green vine snake.

Get it Carl, get it! And although Carl tried, really tried, the snake beat him across the clearing and once in the water of the coche (oxbow) it was gone forever. The snake was a green vine snake, Oxybelis fulgidus, and Carl? Well he knows who he was.

But there is one thing that we watchers are still trying to figure out. While we were standing on the high ground talking to Carl he was fully clothed. Then 100 feet or so away the vine snake made its appearance.

Seconds later, when in hot pursuit of the snake Carl plunged into the silted water of the Amazon coche, he was wearing only his skivvies and his outer clothing was strewn along the pursuit path. How had he accomplished this seeming feat of magic?

I’m not going to show you a photo of Carl or his discarded clothing but here are a few pix of the snake species that caused the uncanny unclothing occurrence.