Animals: Bushmaster

Up to last year Douglas D. H. March, a tall, curly-haired, young snake collector from Haddon Heights, N. J., had been bitten 14 times by nine varieties of poisonous snake—fer-de-lance. moccasin, copperhead, palm viper. Godman’s viper and four subspecies of rattlesnake. Doctors told him that one more bite would probably be the last. Mused he: “I like to say that I am through handling snakes forever, but I know I’m not.” Last week Snakeman March emerged unbitten from the jungles of Panama’s Darien district proudly bearing to his new serpentarium in Old Panama City a live, nine-ft. specimen of the most dangerous snake in the American tropics—the bushmaster.

One of the few persons who envied him his catch was Dr. Raymond Lee Ditmars, famed herpetologist of New York’s Bronx Zoo. Ever since the night some 40 years ago when a bushmaster, sent by a Trinidad collector, chased him around his attic room, Dr. Ditmars has had a special regard for this snake. He has had three specimens, but the last one died 20 years ago. He went to Panama looking for one last year, again this year, with no luck.

The bushmaster ranges from southern Costa Rica to northern Brazil. Studded like a pineapple, its waxy, glistening scales are pale reddish yellow crossed with diamond-shaped black patches on the back. It may be the progenitor of the whole pit viper family, of which it is the longest. The group includes rattlesnake, moccasin, copperhead, fer-de-lance. On the end of the bushmaster’s tail is a slender horn, possibly a vestigial set of rattles. Like the rest of the family, it has a deep pit on either side of its big, blunt snout. It is the only member which lays eggs, usually nesting in deserted armadillo holes. It grows up to 12 ft. long. Its enormously developed fangs look like a sabre-toothed tiger’s.

Calm and fearless, the bushmaster is one of the rare snakes (others: African mamba, Malayan king) which will attack a human being without provocation. Though its venom is slightly less toxic than the fer-de-lance’s, it injects far more, hence is deadlier. One human victim died in less than ten minutes.

The bushmaster hates captivity. Surrounded by tropical foliage and plenty of food, it goes on a sullen hunger strike. Attempts at forced feeding numb it with rage, paralyze its digestion. It starves to death in four or five months. Snakeman March, now possessor of the only known bushmaster in captivity, may have better luck since he will keep his catch in its native habitat.