Animals: Zoo Stories

“The largest poisonous serpent of the American tropics, the king of vipers, growing to twelve feet, clad in scales as rough as a wood rasp, the pinkish brown body with wide, velvety-black cross-bands precisely spaced. . . . The upper jaws carry enormous poison fangs, teeth like heavy, hypodermic needles, over an inch long.” Thus the bushmaster is described by Raymond Lee Ditmars, famed reptile man of the New York Zoological Park (“Bronx Zoo”). Every summer for three years Dr. Ditmars has gone to Panama to look for a bushmaster. Last summer he brought one back which had been caught by a Trinidad oil driller (TIME, Sept. 17). That is almost the only one of his recent doings which he did not get into his latest book, Confessions of a Scientist, published last fortnight.* Many of Dr. Ditmars’ best stories have to do with snakes: snakes in jungle lairs, snakes dying of sun in the Berkshires, harmless vaudeville snakes for which he has been asked to make disguises.

A Ditmars story, told third hand: stimulated by Dr. Ditmars’ first, unsuccessful search for a bushmaster in Panama were two young workers at Madden Dam. Driving home from Panama City late one night they saw a big serpent stretched across the road. It was pinkish brown, with wide cross patterns of black. They charged straight at it, passed over nothing. They backed up, and saw that the snake had snapped into a fighting coil. The two youths decided to capture the bushmaster alive for Dr. Ditmars. In the dim headlights of the car a silent struggle developed—one got a branch over the snake’s head, pressed his knee over it for leverage, reached forward and grasped the bushmaster by the neck. A whitish mouth flew open and long fangs gleamed in the light. He grasped the serpent’s scaly neck with both hands, and the creature seemed to turn inside its skin. With the aid of his friend, he maneuvered the serpent, in a scuffle, almost a dance, to the back of the car, swung it into the rumble seat, clamped it down, and drove home. Next morning, with great caution and preparation, the car was opened. The bushmaster was dead, of a broken neck.

A chapter is devoted to “Monsters of the Year.” Dr. Ditmars’ explanation of the Querqueville Thing (TIME, March 12): a species known as the Basking Shark, its gill structure so decomposed that only the solid bones of the head remained, deceiving investigators. Of the Loch Ness Monster. (TIME, Jan. 15): probably a ten or twelve-foot male of the gray seal, raising a heavy wake in its trail as it ploughed the water. The “follower waves” behind the creature probably deluded observers into thinking the wake was part of the animal, making it three-quarters the length of a lake steamer.

Most publicized Ditmars trophy last year was his female vampire bat, caught in Panama (TIME, Oct. 2, 1933 et seq.}. In the Bronx Zoo it gave birth to a baby vampire, and later both died.** But Dr. Ditmars was able to observe vampire habits minutely, and to make motion pictures. Most bats, when feeding from the ground, must perforce “grovel” with their forelimbs and wing membranes outspread. They must reach a vertical surface from which to take off before they can fly. Dr. Ditmars was surprised to find that his adult could walk like a quadruped, using its thumbs as front feet. From that position it could easily leap up and fly. He was further astounded to see that the vampire, which was fed with slaughter house blood, did not suck but lapped like a cat. The lips were never near the surface of the food. “The [bluish-pink] tongue,” notes Dr. Ditmars, “was relatively long. It moved at the rate of about four darts a second. . . . Once in action it functioned so perfectly that a pulsating cylinder of blood spanned the gap between the surface of the fluid and the creature’s lips.” When the bat was so gorged that it was almost round (see cuts), it wafted itself effortlessly to the top of the cage and hung there, upside down, to digest.

Other books by Dr. Ditmars: Reptiles of the World; Snakes of the World; Strange Animals I Have Known; Thrills of a Naturalist’s Quest.

*Macmillan ($3.50).

**However, along with his bushmaster, Dr. Ditmars last summer captured four more vampire bats in Trinidad.

†The bottom picture shows the vampire’s dagger-like teeth which painlessly produce long-bleeding wounds.