Sitting perfectly still in the middle of the narrow two-lane rural road, the many-banded krait stares into our headlights with a puzzled expression. Regardless of how many times one has encountered Bungarus m. multicinctus in the wild, and the fact notwithstanding that this is actually a very meek, almost docile creature, meeting one of the planet’s most venomous serpents is always good for a nice dose of the willies. And there are lots of these snakes around here.
Here—the central section of the Northern Cross-Island Highway, a slim stretch of mountain road 50 miles south of the capital Taipei, not even 20 miles long, but hands-down the best road-cruising blacktop in all of Taiwan. About 40 of Taiwan’s 51 snake species can be found here, where the northernmost reach of many species overlaps the southernmost reach of others. At elevations ranging between 1800 and 3000 feet, the highway runs through a vast tract of uninhabited forest, the only breaks in the green wall being a multitude of waterfalls, creeks, and the occasional small, man-made canal. It is a cool Sunday night in mid-April, and we have been driving up and down this road all evening, looking for snakes to photograph. Fueled by the usual Taiwan herper snack fare such as canned espresso (ice-cold), roast squid (fiery hot), and lots of dried munchie-quenchers like pork jerky, guavas, and salty plums, we have racked up quite a respectable tally. Apart from the krait, we have spotted and photographed four juvenile bamboo vipers (Viridovipera s. stejnegeri)—by far the most ubiquitous venomous snake on the island, and also the only one not protected by law—two “Dinos” (Dinodon rufozonatum), red-and-black banded, non-venomous, but ill-tempered trash eaters that are not averse to consuming even roadkill toads; three pretty, slim, and equally snappy Formosa wolf snakes (Lycodon ruhstrati ruhstrati)—skittish, twitchy creatures whose black-and-white markings resemble that of the krait; and one DOR (dead on road) Sibynophis chinensis or Asiatic many-toothed snake, a small skink eater with hinged teeth that can lock in a vertical position if the prey tries to escape.
