Snake from Northern Zambia to ID

[Bushviper]

Before anyone gets too excited about the snake being killed let me explain. I received a call from Solwesi, Northern Zambia about a child arriving at the clinic after having been bitten by a snake.

They sent me these pictures of the snake which the villagers had obviously killed to bring with. I could not identify it although I was leaning towards Causus (Night adders) but could not see fangs on it.















Now this is also the first time that I have been shown photographs of 20 to 30 kilobytes with so many angles of head shields, labial scales and mouth views. I must say I was impressed. There are more pictures in the miscellaneous gallery of the throat etc as well.

Unfortunately I could not help the patient besides reassuring them the patient will not die and does not need antivenom. At least the elimination of deadly species did help in this case.

If anyone could clear this up for me I would be most grateful.

[s'mee]

It is Causus rhombeatus - one of the nice patternless ones.

Were these pics from Chris?

[Warren Klein]

I'm not sure of the species but I'd say you are right about being a Causus.

[Bushviper]

Yeah Chris sent the pictures. Never seen a patternless Causus rhombeatus before. Is this more common further north?

[s'mee]

Bv, yes the patternless form is more common in the northern populations.
There are also patternless varieties of C maculatus but this species does not occur that far south. There are also distinct differences in the head scalation between C rhombeatus and C maculatus

[Bushviper]

Thanks for that info. I found out that there were fangs which he exposed after taking the pictures. That would then confirm my first guess which I had sent to him.

[Jamster]

Wow! never seen patternless either! But i must say though, as soon as you see it you can definetely tell it is Causus sp.