Black Tailed Cribo

Yesterday was a very stressful day. In the morning, we had been worried about the possibility of a hurricane strike. By the end of the day, we had learned that the storm had hit the tip of Nicaragua, turned inland, and lost most of its power. We would still get hit with a great deal of rain and strong breeze. But we no longer worried about our house blowing away.

As night approached it seemed things might get tranquil again. But there was a surprised sound and Rebecca came out of the bathroom rather suddenly. She mentioned that there was a snake behind the toilet.

The pictures that follow are somewhat gory. If you don't like to see pictures of blood or snakes or meat or cooking, do not click "read more".


Among the local mestizo people there appears to be a sharp division of labor between husbands and wives. There is not as much distinction between what work is for me and what work is for Rebecca. However, somehow without it ever being discussed, I have picked up on the idea that dealing with snakes in the house is man's work. So I went to investigate.

We do not automatically kill any snake in the house. Sometimes there are small speckled racers with green heads. These we leave alone, perhaps shooing them away so the cat does not kill them. At first it looked like this might be a small snake. From behind the shower / tub thing, I saw a thin dark blue tail. With a flashlight I looked between the wall and the tub and asked Christopher to bring the machete.

In the terribly confined space I could see an enormous snake. More than two inches in diameter, wound back and forth over itself in a way that suggested it was very long. It was in the process of eating a toad.

I don't very much like toads, particularly in the house. I would not mind if snakes eat them. I do not like killing snakes. For one thing, I think they are very pretty, but also, I am afraid they could bite me when I try to kill them. Estimates vary, but Belize is home to from eight to twenty kinds of deadly snakes.

I would very much liked to have scared this snake out of the house. He was in a spot where it would be impossible to quickly kill him, and dangerous to fight him. But he was large enough to eat the cat or the chickens.

It was not a clean job, it was not humane. But Christopher and I managed to murder the poor snake.

We used a shovel to scoop up its head and carry that to the burn pit. Supposedly a snakes head can bite several hours after being severed from the rest of the snake. I see no reason to test this bit of conventional wisdom.







A bit of time on the internet suggested that the snake was a Black tailed Cribo or Drymarchon corais melanurus. We found a picture of one at another website. These are not venomous, but this snake still had to die if only for the sake of the cat and the chickens.

The next bit was to get rid of the snakes body. The chickens would love to eat it, but the skin would make it to difficult for them to eat. So, I decided to open it up. I made a cut from the vent to where the head used to be and pealed off the skin.

 

At that point it looked very much like some kind of food so I put it in a bucket of water. The chickens only received the guts.

We cooked the snake.

We cut two pieces to fry, and boiled the rest hoping the meat might fall off the bones. There was not much meat, and a lot of bones. But it was good. All of us tried some, including Rebecca.

In the future I will have to kill any of snakes of this kind that we see. Particularly if they are near the chicken coop, or are a little bigger and have some more meat on their bones. Hopefully it will not have to happen in a four inch gap between the wall and the tub.