A large-eyed, slender African tree snake with potent rear-fanged hemotoxic venom and remarkable colour differences between the sexes.
Description
The boomslang is a slender, large-eyed arboreal snake under 2 m long, with huge round emerald-green eyes and a short rounded head. Males are usually bright green with black scale edges, while females are an unremarkable olive-brown — among the most marked sexual differences in any snake.
Behavior
A diurnal hunter that creeps through the canopy in search of chameleons and nesting birds, the boomslang strikes from camouflage and chews venom into prey through enlarged rear fangs. Its hemotoxic venom causes catastrophic bleeding and famously killed herpetologist Karl Schmidt in 1957.
Range
Found across sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal east to Ethiopia and south to the Cape. It is more often heard breaking twigs in trees than seen, and bites are rare because the species would rather flee than confront.
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