Herping with Hans,
By Aaron
This past Saturday I had the pleasure of being invited to a Snake and Amphibian association meeting in Taipei. It was great to meet some of the country’s prominent herpetologists and a doctor that has expertise in treating venomous snake bites here. Hans, the gentleman that invited me, also invited Rika and I to go hiking and herping (searching for and possibly catching reptiles and amphibians).
Sunday morning we packed our bags, got some food for lunch later, and met Hans at an MRT station near Yangmingshan National Park. We drove up into the mountains and hit the trail. The three of us got out of the van and within minutes we found a red banded snake in a drain pipe. Sadly it didn’t really count since we couldn’t catch it (according to Hans) The rest of the hike we saw hundreds of skinks (we caught a couple) a few jalpuras (a small iguana like looking lizard, that we caught as well), but no more snakes. Luckily Hans does not give up easily. After our long beautiful hike full of good exercise and good conversation Hans took us to a Buddhist restaurant. Rika loves Buddhist restaurants because they’re all vegetarian and she can eat anything there. Hans, a German, introduced us to a drink from Germany called Malz. In Germany it’s called children’s beer, here it’s popular with the strict Buddhist crowd because they don’t drink alcohol. I have to say it reminds me of root beer, but not as sweet, and with maybe a bit of a licorice flavor. Pretty good.
After dinner Hans knew where to go to find a snake, we drove some roads up in the mountains and walked some drain ditches and finally spotted our prize. Another Red Banded Snake, but this one we caught. A medium sized specimen that proceeded to crap on us and the snake hook in dismay at being captured, but it was a beautiful snake and for me the first wild catch of a snake in Taiwan. All of these stories I heard from people in the states about snakes being everywhere seem very over exaggerated right now, trust me I’ve been looking for them.
So, Hans if you read this, thanks for the awesome time, next time let’s find some venomous (mom I’ll be careful, I always am, and besides they have great health care, and I met they doctor to go to if I do get bit).
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