PAPUA NEW GUINEA SNAKEBITE PROJECT
BLOOD AND GUTS

In the evening we set out in two vehicles, Dave, Simon and Julious in the Troopie, Ben and myself in the Patrol, to drive the Hiritano Highway, aka Brown River Road, between the Brown River bridge [9° 11.976' 147° 14.048'E] and Vanapa River bridge [9° 6.308'S 147° 8.490'E]*. This stretch of road could have been built by the Romans. It runs straight and true across through savanna and swamp for about 7 km from Brown River, Northeast to Veikubu Creek, where it takes a dog's-hind-leg turn to the North-northeast and continues for another 7 km dead straight to Vanapa River. This used to be a great snake road but with increased traffic and settlement captures have diminished.

* Import these coordinates into Google Earth to view the route.

Ben and I took the lead while Dave gave us 20minutes head start before he followed. We drove to Vanapa River and back twice, a total of around 56 km of road-cruising at 35-45 kph and it still took about two hours. Papuans have a fixation with fire and there were deliberately started bush fires blazing all along the route. We stopped besides those near to the road in case any snakes were fleeing ahead of the flames, but nothing appeared apart from one New Guinea long-nosed bandicoot (Peroryctes sp.).

Papua New Guineans seem to love fire, they light a lot of them at night, some to clear bush for gardens, some to drive out game like bandicoots, but a lot of fires seem to be lit purely for the pleasure of watching them burn

First find was to Ben and myself, a fine New Guinea blue-tonged skink (Tiliqua gigas) on the roadside not far out from Brown River. We then saw nothing until our second return to Brown River when we caught a Brown treesnake (Boiga irregularis) crossing the road. We met up with the other vehicle and found they had picked up an injured Eastern common keelback (Tropidonophis mairii mairii) on the road. This snake was not going to survive so it was retained to feed the Small-eyed snakes (Micropechis ikaheka) in the Snek Haus.

New Guinea blue-tongued skink Tiliqua gigas	Brown treesnake Boiga irregularis

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