The Flying Saucer At Sunset

Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds with a smooth layered appearance that form in the troposphere, usually above mountain ranges. One was spotted in Singapore recently...

Eyes Of 30,000 Honeycombs

With 30,000 individual facets, dragonflies have the most number of facets among insects. Each facet, or ommatidia, creates its own image, and the dragonfly brain has eight pairs of descending visual neurons to compile those thousands of images into one picture...

A Kaleidoscope Of Colours, Shapes And Patterns

Spectacular and innovative in design, the Flower Dome replicates the cool-dry climate of Mediterranean regions like South Africa, California and parts of Spain and Italy. Home to a collection of plants from deserts all over the world, it showcases the adaptations of plants to arid environments...

Lightning Strikes, Not Once, But Many Times

Unlike light, lightning does not travel in a straight line. Instead, it has many branches. These other branches flashed at the same time as the main strike. The branches are actually the step leaders that were connected to the leader that made it to its target...

Are You My Dinner Tonight?

A T-Rex has 24-26 teeth on its upper jaw and 24 more on its lower jaw. Juveniles have small, sharp blade-shaped teeth to cut flesh, whereas adults have huge, blunt, rounded teeth for crushing bones. Is the T-Rex a bone-crushing scavenger?

Sungei Buloh - The Dark Dangerous Branch

Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
North, Singapore
December 2013

A species of mangroves and coastal forests, the Cryptelytrops purpureomaculatus (Shore Pit Viper) has a reputation for being unpredictable and should be approached with caution. Giving no warning signs, this snake will strike readily and far at any threat, and its powerful haemotoxic venom can cause serious illness or even kill. 

This shy snake looks just like another branch in a mangrove tree where it usually coils motionless. A small snake with the typical broad triangular head of a viper, it has large red eyes on a rather angry looking face. It is more active at night.  By day it can be found resting on low branches one or two metres from the ground.


Its colour can vary from a uniform dark grey or purplish-brown to a weakly-patterned brown, with a white stripe along each flank, or even greenish-yellow with dark mottling. The scales are strongly keeled (i.e. ridged). Males grow to a total length of 66.5 centimetres (26.2 inches), females 90 centimetres (35 inches). The maximum tail lengths are then 12.5 centimetres (4.9 inches) and 14 centimetres (5.5 inches) respectively.


Feeding on lizards, frogs and other small animals, possibly small birds, similar to other vipers, it has heat-sensing pits on its lips to detect its prey.

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