Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Giant Gaboon viper

Got this pict in an e-mail today from Elton R. Snake is from northern Zambia. Difficult to tell how big it really is, but it surely isn't a small one.

Who is Elton R. Snake?

Sorry, I couldn't resist

Paul

WOW! He is a good sized one! I've only seen 4-5 footers in the zoo.

OR, maybe the guy holding him is only 2" tall.

The guy is holding him way out towards the camera on the stick. He might be a bigun though.

how long would you have to live after the bite???

gabby's hold the distinction of being one of the only venomous snakes that even after they had their venom glands removed have killed people......believe one of the people was a gal in Colorado.....anyways they have the longest fangs of any snake.....atleast one gal had the venom glands removed to make it "safe"......snake struck her in the arm, force of the large snake hitting the arm with fangs sunk deep completely tore open the artery in the arm and she bled to death before getting to the phone to call for help....

drop for drop the venom is about like a eastern diamondbacks.....not good....

would love to have the hide off that thing as well as the skull.....have the hide off a smaller one that died in captivity

If this one gets you by the throat, rips out your esophogus and smothers you with body weight you'll have about 30 seconds

Saddest part is that it's been killed and will have gone through that guy's digestive system by now. Sure is the biggest one I've ever seen.

True about the longest fangs and typically adder they are lazy and people tend to step on them more than anything else. Mostly prevalent in Natal as far as SA goes and I have never come across one in the wild...as far as I know.

the guy doesnt look particularly tall, granted its hard to judge but i would guess that snake is just a few inches short of 6 foot making it close to the upper range of their biggest documented size.....are reports of some just over 7 foot but of course no ones brought out a live(or dead and whole) one that size for official measurement....

Sheridan and I are of like mind when it comes to this kind of thing....

Damn...thats a gorgeous snake!

I'm kind of like Indy -- I don't like snakes!!

I love snakes!!!Dont think I would like to come across that one though...............

It looks like the head on the snake is actually moving and not hanging down like one should if it is dead!!

The neck looks kinked and likely broken from my view?

Regardless of size, vipers are bad news. In the PH academy we learned with videos showing a man getting bitten by a small Puff adder in a snake show, going to the hospital, with the video crew along with him. The next day his arm was about 3 times the size and he was pumped so full of anti-venom his body could take no more.

They decided to amputate the arm, but it was too late he died within 48 hours. This non-public video tape was to show that even a small adder was nothing to fool with.

One of my long time PH's was bitten on the index finger tip with barely a pin prick from a single fang.several hours later he could feel his hand throbbing. Later that early evening his finger began to swell and he was feeling feverish and nauseous. It was decided better safe then sorry lets get him to the hospital.

By the time we arrived he was very sick and swelling up fast. They gave him a good dose of anti-venom. Almost instantly he went into cardiac arrest and was flat lined, the paddles came out and revived him, twice more in the next hour he had cardiac arrest and the paddles were used to bring him back.

He was one of the 10% allergic to the anti-venom and had anaphylactic shock. Had the anti venom been given in the field he would have died there in the bush.

By night fall he was about 100% perfect with no effects from the paddles, the anaphylactic shock or the venom. He was back hunting the next day!

One of my School mates in RSA is a doctor in Natal. He told us that most of the snake bites he sees in his practice are from black kids running bare foot. Most lose a foot or leg below the knee from adder bites. The cytotoxic nature of the venom digests the flesh around the bite, and causes loss of blood flow with the massive swelling. This kills enough tissue that amputation is the last resort but all too frequent.

He also made note that he had never seen a adder bite above the knee. Most are assumed to be stepped upon and react by biting the nearest thing on them. Fortunately most snakes grandstand a bit before the strike. The Rinkals cobra may be one exception along with the Black Mamba during the breeding season. These two seem to bite first and ask questions later. Outside of the Breeding season they more remind me of a squirrel. They tend to go up the first tree they can reach. I've seen many more mambas in Trees then on the ground. same with the Rinkals. By the way, that Rinkals cobra goes through the branches about as easy as a fish can swim. They can go thru the trees faster overhead then a man can walk on the ground.

Anyway, I have plenty of stories and experience with snakes, too much to go into here. I've never cared for them, but I don't usually kill them "just because" either. I figure it's just bad Karma and hope they will give me a pass in the future for all those I have let go by in the past.

I want a pair of gabby boots!!

JJ:

When is the black mamba breeding season? I want to NOT be in the bush at that time.

For what it's worth, I've seen puff adders sunning themselves on paths in May and June and a black mamba in June. My PH killed a 10-foot black mamba in his garden in northern RSA in late May.

That thing is a hoss. There is a huge one at the Memphis Zoo's herpetarium too.

puff adders have very nasty venom, as far as flat out tissue destroying venoms go its about the worst....alot of those that die from puff adder bites dont technically die from the venom, they die from going septic from the dead tissue.....not a nice way to go....

I was classified as septic with my Staph infection this past January. Nope, not pleasant at ALL. Easily the sickest and most miserable I have ever been and I cannot imagine being sicker. Since I nearly crossed over a couple of times, I think this means that I really could not have GOTTEN any sicker and been here to type about it.

As far as seeing big snakes in the wild, I genrally am of the mind to shoot first and would love to have some big snake skins as part of my trophies display. I have been exceptionally fortunate to have not had any run ins so far.

I'm with Sheridan and ingwe, that is a gorgeous snake; it's dead.

Jochen told me you really liked snakes. I'll admit even though it was Namibia's winter, when we would sit down and glass from the top of a rock strewn, brushy hill, i would very carefully scan my hind end's landing zone.

ingwe has a mission from me to try and find a snake thats on his side of the state and not mine.....decided 4 years is long enough without a snake in the house and one species ive always wanted to work with is a small boa native to the western third of Montana....gonna get a few other species aswell including hopefully a mildly venomous species from South America i used to keep....

lordy lordy , thats a big snake not even seen them that size in the forest , and he is definately not a pygmy so thats a giant Gabon and has to be old man what a waste, didnt let it live , killed it and the probably tried to sell it for the meat if i know AFRICA !!!!

gaboons are not the most venon deadly but the extreme length of the fangs puts the poison so deep in the tissue. growing up in west texas we learned about snakes from early childhood & i never knew any of my friends getting bitten. these days if i see a copperhead or rattler not close to camp or home i just let them go along however the idea of snakes in trees would make me nervous. watching the ground & above is tough to handle.---cranky72

In the rain forest they blend in with leaves on the forest floor, have pygmy trackers who usually do vertical take off and walk on low hanging vines when they spot them, actually hilarious laugh till you hear them hiss ( sounds like air out of a inner tube ) then laughing stops and everyone heads back they way came without any dignity and at incredible speed usually means bongo hunt over for the day.

Makes for interesting conversation round a campfire >>>>

no drop for drop they dont hold a candle to alot of the elapids but drop for drop the venom is comparable to an eastern diamondback which is no slouch in toxicity combine that with a venom load significantly higher than most other snakes and bite are often lethal.....kinda 6 of one half dozen of the other.....might not be as deadly drop for drop as a mamba but your likely gonna die if bitten out in the bush just the same....

Rattler, you are evidentally a serpent man (Doh!) . I am very intrigued by most of the beautifully, patterned ones but was a little skittish in Namibia, and even though it was winter we had a smaller gabbon found outside the house one morning.

Last pd shoot in SD, one of our party stepped over a fence but levitated for an instant due to a short, forearm-thick Western Diamond back that would have been under his next step.

We saw more snakes that trip, one of which i used shooting sticks to put him in a cooler filled with ice. Six hours later, at home we sneaked a peak thinking he'd be "sleepy". Taking umbrage at our meddling in his day, he "cocked" his body and gave a nice sustained rattle -- my wife took umbrage with me. Well, he got the cryo- treatment and is now in permanent striking mode which I think he'd like.

I don't care how long the snake is, but a human who is only 2 inches tall would really be something!

George, yeah im a snake freak, but so is ingwe so im not alone on here actually the snake yah found in South Dakota would have been a prairie rattler not a western diamond back......the diamondback isnt found much more north than Oklahoma....the markings/coloration of a prairie are close enough to a western diamodback that if your not really familiar with snakes you might not see the difference.....

I'm a bit of a snake freak too, and Australia can be quite a dangerous place to be so. Mind you, for all their hype and venom over here, they can be quite scarce to encounter, and even then, they seem to be intent on disappearing pretty quick.

Thanks for the correction R.

Troy, at this point i would damn near give up my left nut to spend a month down there doing nothing but hunting, fishing and catching snakes and lizards.....my wife is afraid if i ever get to Oz, ill never leave

George......since yah got him mounted as a reminder, interesting thing bout the prairie over the western diamondback is that drop for drop the prairies venom is more toxic......there are a fair number of subspecies in the prairie rattler complex and some of the others are some of the most deadly snakes in the US in venom toxicity.....but the good thing going for us is prairies usually arent a big snake so they dont pack as much venom as some of the other species so you normally have plenty of time to get to a doc so deaths are extremely uncommon.....

Well Sheridan, come on over. The tropical part of Oz will see you having the most fun with most of your pursuits. Pigs, Buffalo, maybe some Chital deer in some areas. Access for hunting up there can be pretty hard, unless you're prepared to pay, or know someone with land. But area's for fishing and generally running amok with the local wildlife can be a bit easier to find. Not to mention, I've found most of the reptiles a bit nore prolific up there than down here in the South.
I mainly find common brown snakes down here, and the odd tiger and red bellied black. The first two are customers you certainly don't want to get in a tangle with, but the red bellied black isn't that poisonous.

Having read your posts for some years I am fairly sure you will fit in fine here....now if you can just get rid of that abysmal accent.

The only good snake ...

I hate snakes. The snake in the original pic makes me think I need a double rifle just in case.... Regardless, a .30 WCF is not overkill for a creature of that size.

Also, thanks to JJ for filling my nightmares with cobras swimming around over my head in the trees.