How to tell if a snake could kill you

So rather than tell you what I've done today, I decided today to make my post educational and I am going to teach you what I learned about how to tell a poisonous snake from a harmless one. Although I think this information may only be good in Costa Rica. But it's a touristy place... many of you could be here someday!

To start, there are 3 types of venomous snakes here in Costa Rica:

1) There is a venemous sea snake, which I believe is pretty distinct in that it has a yellow bottom with a green or blue top and IT'S IN THE SEA. The good news about this snake is that it has a tiny mouth and is very unlikely to ever bite you unless you try to pick it up. The bad news is that because of this Costa Rica does not make any anti-venom for it so for gods sake, if you see one of these, don't try to pick it up! Also, if it comes out of the water, it's probably old and dying, so no need to worry.

2) The coral snake. These are the colorful ones that are generally black, yellow and red. The way to know if this one can kill you is by the order of these colors. If it goese red-yellow-black-yellow then it is deadly, if it goes red-black-yellow-black, it is harmless. Got that? No, me neither, but another way to remember that is that "Red and Yellow *add something here that rhymes with yellow that means stay away!*, Red and Black is a friend of Jack"

Okay, now that we've gotten that straight, there is an exception. Some coral snakes only have 2 colors: Red and Black. In this case, the only way to tell if it is venomous is to look at the banding. If the bands go all the way around the snake, it can kill you, if the bands are only on the top or only on the bottom, it's fine.

3) Did you think Coral snakes seemed confusing? Well now we're on to vipers, which seems to be a little more nuanced. There are several ways to tell the difference between vipers and harmless snakes that look sort of like vipers, and they all involve looking at the head (at least those are the ones I remember)

• looking from the top, vipers have triangular heads (because of the venom stored in the sides of course) whereas the harmless ones have more straight heads
• also from the top, the scales on a viper's head are big, whereas the harmless ones have little scales
• looking from the side, vipers have a more pointy nose, whereas harmless ones tend to have rounded noses
• again from the side, vipers have 2 'nose holes' (one actual nose hole and a heat sensor) whereas harmless ones only have the nose hole
• vipers are nocturnal and so basically close their eyes during the day so look like they have cat eyes (slits for pupils) whereas most harmless ones are diurnal and have round pupils. However, there are harmless nocturnal snakes that have cat eyes too so this one isn't perfect)

These are all that I can think of. Good to know right?? However, I don't know about you, but for me if I do see a snake I am 100% sure that I will not be taking a closer look to see if I can tell if it is poisonous or not. I will be running in the other direction.

Anyways, that's all for today. I'm not planning on doing much except my laundry tomorrow so I'll update you on today and tomorrow then. I'll give you a hint though. I may be okay with looking at snakes that are separated by a pane of glass, but I was by no means as cool as that when there was no glass!!

Buenas!
Kaila

P.S. Lots of cool flowers here, but I don't know the names of any of them... sorry