PAPUA NEW GUINEA SNAKEBITE PROJECT
A DAY AT THE MUSEUM

I arrived at the National Museum of Papua New Guinea at around 09:00 and called Bulisa Iova. he told me to enter the museum by the main entrance and tell the security personnel I was expected. That done I made my way down to the Natural History section, spent a short while talking to Bulisa and his colleagues and then went exploring in the spirit room.

The spirit room at the National Museum of PNG	The Toxicocalamus collection

I gathered the 12 specimens of Toxicocalamus from the spirit room and began processing them.

I set up two Canon 7D cameras, one with a 100mm macro lens and the other with the amazing MP-E 65mm macro lens which allows up to 5x life-szie (10x with a 2x extender). Both set-ups had MT24-EX macro twin lite flash units attached.

Every specimen was first photographed in dorsal and ventral plane on a neutral blue cloth background, with any attached labels and numbers visible. This was easier for some specimens than others since there were well fixed specimens that could be laid flat, so all their scalation could be seen, and others that were twisted and fragile. I did my best.

I started with a favourite specimen in the collection, one of only two or three known examples of the Spotted forst snake (Toxicocalamus spilolepidotus), a specimen I had photographed 20 years ago for my book A Guide to the Snakes of Papua New Guinea.

Spotted forest snake, Toxicocalamus spilolepidotus

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