When I saw my first living Western two-lined forest pit vipers, Bothriopsis bilineatus smaragdinus, in the wilds of Amazonian Peru, it was more or less because of a fortuitous rest, During that rest, a clutch of four neonates had been found coiled quietly on the broad leaves of a trailside shrub.

Patti and I were leading a herp photography tour, and earlier that day one of the participants had asked me what snake I had yet failed to see was highest on my list of "want to sees." My answer to her had been that it was this arboreal pit viper, a taxon that I had searched for on many other occasions but had failed to find.



In fact, I had seen this black-peppered green subspecies only two times before. The first time had been in the cages of a northeastern reptile dealer. The second time had been an adult that had been killed by a Peruvian villager. Therefore I knew that the snake occurred in the forests that now surrounded us. But time and again Patti and I had walked various trails and failed to see the creature.