A Magnificent Viper Seen in the Mountains of Tanzania - Observation of the Week, 4/26/22

Our Observation of the Day is this Usambara Eyelash Viper (Atheris ceratophora), seen in Tanzania by @jvl!

“I was born and raised at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, in Rombo district, Tanzania, near the Tanzania-Kenya border,” says John Lyakurwa, a researcher with the University of Dar es Salaam. Surrounded by world class protected areas, John says he often encountered wildlife as he was growing up. “Meeting chameleons, geckos and snakes while hand picking coffee was a very common experience at the age of 5,” he explains.

When I joined the university, I was deeply inspired by Prof. Kim Howell who made me realize how little is known about reptiles and amphibians, and how most snakes and some lizards (e.g. chameleons and agamas) are misunderstood and killed needlessly. Since then, I decided to photograph endemic amphibians and reptiles and use them to raise awareness, which partly involves traveling to remote places across the country, photographing unique and endemic species and share with people who have no access (majority) to these localities.

A few weeks ago, John and Ardgard Mwamgeni visited the East Usambara Mountains to photograph reptiles and amphibians. 

After two days and nights of hiking inside the bush and photographing a couple of species, it was on the last day that we found a medium sized, nicely colored subadult A. ceratophora coiled near the leaf node of an Aframomum plant (~1m from the ground). The snake was calm and was left undisturbed after the observation.  

Endemic to the Eastern Arc Mountains of Tanzania, this small arboreal viper “used to be common throughout its range, but has been difficult to find recently, mostly due to illegal collection for pet trade,” explains John. While he’s seen it several times in the Udzungwa Mountains, last March was his first encounter with this species in the Usambara Mountains (it’s type locality). 

A member of iNat since 2017, John (above) joined the community so he could share his nature photos and get ID help (especially for invertebrates, which he’s not as familiar with).

I thought that on iNaturalist my observations could be identified by people using the platform and other people could have access to my records (rather than just keeping them in my hard drive for myself). Later I learnt that through iNaturalist, one can document the biodiversity of an area and the project can be customized depending on specific needs/targets. INaturalist has enabled me to learn many things related to nature, link with specialists who are in the same field with me or are interested in observations I post, and has broadened my interest to even photograph arthropods.

(Photos of John by Ardgard Mwamgeni (middle) and John Lyakurwa (bottom). Some quotes have been lightly edited for clarity.)

- Check out John's publications on ResearchGate. He also co-authored a beautiful book, Amphibians of the Tanzanian forests, which is available to download for free here.

- African bush vipers are pretty stunning, check out these observations of them!

- Some other viper encounters have been observations of the week, like this bamboo viper by @prasannaparab and a Siamese peninsula pitviper by @rharris70!

Posted on April 26, 2022 07:32 PM by tiwane