Snakes are mostly illusive creatures. They tend to stay out of our way. In the decade that I have been working as a guide at Jenman African Safaris I can count on my ten fingers the amount of snakes I have seen… Especially in winter as they move around even less. That makes it all the more exciting when I get to see one. This time it was a dwarf adder and we were exploring Sesriem canyon in the Namib Desert.
The one in these pictures is the southern dwarf adder. Dwarf adders become active in the early morning and will eat other reptiles and small mammals. They camouflage very well and we walked past this little guy on the way into the canyon.
He even showed us some side-winding manoeuvres, which is a very effective way of moving through hot loose sand. Very little is known about their reproduction. Between 4 and 14 young are produced in late summer measuring between 120 – 160 mm. Few bites have been recorded but as these snakes, while it would be a painful bite, it wouldn’t be a deadly bite.
