相簿列表 » Reptiles of Japan.

The Habu (ハブ, 波布, Protobothrops flavoviridis) is the biggest viper among Japanese poisonous snakes. The biggest individual so far is the one found in Onna Village of Okinawa Island when October 12th, 2011. The length was 242 cm, weight 2.8 kg. The Japanese government considered Habu as a dangerous creature, so they keep trying to reduce the population number of Habu by spend 3000 or 4000 yen for each Habu caught by people as a reward. Although I don't like this kind of work, but I can also understood how fear Japanese people are to Habu. In general, we estimate the striking distance of the snake is half to two-thirds of the length. So if you encounter the big snake with 242 cm long, the snake can bite you in the distance about 120-160 cm! I think many people don't have a snake-hook even longer than that! It's more dangerous than all the Taiwanese six-big poisonous snakes! Although this is an extreme example, but anyway we leave nothing to chance. We should be more careful if we are doing field work in the distribution areas of Habu... there is no guarantee that you will not encounter a record-breaking big snake, right? Let's keep a safe distance, enjoy the beauty of the golden snake quietly... what a nice moment!
黃綠龜殼花 (the Habu, ハブ, 波布, Protobothrops flavoviridis) 是日本國境內最大的毒蛇。目前最大的紀錄是2011年10月12日在沖繩島恩納村被人打死的個體，長242公分，重2.8公斤。被日本政府視為危險動物的黃綠龜殼花，在不同地區以三到四千日元不等的價格向民眾收購，目的就是希望壓低黃綠龜殼花的數量以減少對民眾的傷害。雖然個人不喜歡這種做法，但是對於日本民眾對黃綠龜殼花的恐懼卻也可以理解。我們一般將蛇的攻擊距離估計為蛇身長的二分之一到三分之二，試想如果你遇上了242公分長的巨無霸，牠可以彈過來咬人的距離大約是120-160公分遠！很多人的蛇鉤都沒有那麼長！危險性比台灣的六大毒蛇都要高！雖說這是個極端例子，但禦敵必須從嚴，在有黃綠龜殼花分布的地區進行野外觀察的時候還是要加倍小心，難保你不會遇上破紀錄的大傢伙，對吧？在小心保持安全距離的前提之下，靜靜欣賞這金黃色的蜿蜒之美，多棒！