Saw Scaled Viper snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Saw-scaled viper Echis carinatus Description: Color is light buff with shades of brown, dull red, or gray. Its sides have a white or light-colored pattern. Its head usually has two dark stripes that start behind the eye and extend to the rear. Characteristics: A small but extremely dangerous viper. It…
Sand Viper snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Sand viper Cerastes vipera Description: Usually uniformly very pallid, with three rows of darker brown spots. Characteristics: A very small desert dweller that can bury itself in the sand during the day's heat. It is nocturnal, coming out at night to feed on lizards and small desert rodents. It has…
Rhinoceros Viper or River Jack Snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Rhinoceros viper or river jack Bitis nasicornis Description: Brightly colored with purplish to reddish-brown markings and black and light olive markings along the back. On its head it has a triangular marking that starts at the tip of the nose. It has a pair of long horns (scales) on the…
Puff adder snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Puff adder Bitis arietans Description: Yellowish, light brown, or orange with chevron-shaped dark brown or black bars. Characteristics: The puff adder is the second largest of the dangerous vipers. It is one of the most common snakes in Africa. It is largely nocturnal, hunting at night and seeking shelter during…
Mole viper or burrowing viper – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Mole viper or burrowing viper Atracaspis microlepidota Description: Uniformly black or dark brown with a small, narrow head. Characteristics: A viper that does not look like one. It is small in size, and its small head does not indicate the presence of venom glands. It has a rather inoffensive disposition;…
Green mamba snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Green mamba Dendraspis angusticeps Description: Most mambas are uniformly bright green over their entire body. The black mamba, the largest of the species, is uniformly olive to black. Characteristics: The mamba is the most dreaded snake species of Africa. Treat it with great respect. It is considered one of the…
Gaboon viper snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Gaboon viper Bitis gabonica Description: Pink to brown with a vertebral series of elongated yellowish or light brown spots connected by hourglass-shaped markings on each side. It has a dark brown stripe behind each eye. This dangerous viper is almost invisible on the forest floor. A (6-foot-long) Gaboon viper could…
Habu Pit Viper snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Habu Pit Viper Naja haje Description: Yellowish, dark brown, or black uniform top with brown cross-bands. Its head is sometimes black. Characteristics: It is extremely dangerous. It is responsible for many human deaths. Once aroused or threatened, it will attack and continue the attack until it feels an escape is…
Bush viper snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Bush viper Atheris squamiger Description: Often called leaf viper, its color varies from ground colors of pale green to olive, brown, or rusty brown. The viper uses its prehensile tail to secure itself to branches. Characteristics: An arboreal species that often comes down to the ground to feed on small…
Boomslang snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Boomslang Dispholidus typus Description: Coloration varies but is generally green or brown, which makes it very hard to see in its habitat. Characteristics: Will strike if molested. Its venom is hemotoxic; even small amounts cause severe hemorrhaging, making it dangerous to man. Habitat: Found in forested areas. It will spend…
All about the Coral snake – how to identify, avoid their habitat, and treatment for their bite.
Coral snake Micrurus fulvius Description: The Coral Snake is colorfully marked with rings that are bright blacks, reds, and yellows in color. Some of the colored bands, particularly the red bands, may be speckled. Other non-poisonous species have similar colors and markings including the Scarlet Snake and the Milk Snake. …
Tick – the dangers of tick bites, how to avoid them, and how to treat
Description: Ticks are in the same family as spiders and hence share some characteristics with them ( like spiders, Ticks have eight legs). They are parasites living on the blood of other animals a practice which makes them vectors (carriers) of several diseases including Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted…
All about wasps and hornets – their habitat, sting, treatment, and how to avoid their bite.
Wasps and hornets Description: The Wasp, or Hornet (also known as Dirt Daubers, Mud Daubers, Potter Wasps, Velvet Ants, Yellowjackets, Fairyflies), is a rather generic suborder of insects. A Wasp generally a smooth-bodied, slender stinging insects. Like a Bee, Wasps have two pairs of wings, a stinger (only the female…
All about bees – their habitat, sting, and how to avoid being attacked
Bee Description: Bees are flying insects with brown or black, hairy, fuzz-covered bodies (the hair on their body is used to collect pollen). The bee’s body typically has 3 or 5 dark, black and yellow or orangish, colored hair bands around their body and lack the “thin” abdomen found in…
All about the Centipede – their habitat, sting, treatment, and how to avoid their bite.
Centipede Description: Centipedes have multi-jointed body, each segment having a pair of legs, growing to 30 centimeters (12 inches) long, with each pair slightly longer than the pair in front of it. Centipedes are typically dull orange, red to brown (species that live underground may have no color pigmentation), with…
All about the Black Widow Spider or Widow Spider – their habitat, sting, treatment, and how to avoid their bite.
Black Widow spider Latrodectus species Description: Black Widow Spiders are dark, usually black, medium sized spiders with light red or orange markings (typically in the shape of an hourglass) on female's abdomen (underneath the spider’s body). Black Widow Spiders (or Widow Spiders) have dark, glossy, globular bodies about 1/2 inch…
Scorpion – how to identify, avoid, and treat scorpion stings.
Scorpion Scorpionidae order Description: Scorpions are dull brown, yellow, or black (the most common is the brown Striped Bark Scorpion). Their color often camouflages them and makes it difficult to see amongst rocks and dirt. They have eight legs and distinctive to 20-centimeter long (3- to 8-inch long) lobster-like pincers…
Rosary pea or crab’s eyes – how to identify this poisonous plant and diagnose/treat poisoning.
Rosary pea or crab's eyes Abrus precatorius Leguminosae (Fabaceae) Family Description: The Rosary Pea plant (also known as Jequirity, Crab's Eye, Rosary Pea, John Crow Bead, Precatory bean,Indian Licorice, Akar Saga, Giddee Giddee or Jumbie Bead) is a small, slender, high-climbing vine that twines around trees, shrubs, and hedges. It…
Poison hemlock, fool’s parsley – how to identify this poisonous plant and diagnose/treat poisoning.
Poison hemlock, fool's parsley Conium maculatum Parsley (Apiaceae) Family Description: The poison hemlock plant (also known as Beaver Poison, Herb Bennet, Musquash Root, Poison Parsley, Spotted Corobane, and Spotted Hemlock) is a biennial herb that may grow to meters (8 feet) high. The smooth, hollow green stem may or may…
Lantana – how to identify this poisonous plant and diagnose/treat poisoning.
Lantana Lantana camara Vervain (Verbenaceae) Family Description: The poisonous Lantana plant, also known as Spanish Flag, Big Sage, Blacksage, Wild Sage, Prickly Lantana, or West Indian Lantana, is a low erect, shrub-like plant that may grow up to 45 centimeters (18 inches) high. It has opposite, round to oval shaped…
Cowhage, cowage, cowitch – how to identify this poisonous plant and diagnose/treat poisoning.
Cowhage, cowage, cowitch Mucuna pruritum (Mucuna pruriens) Leguminosae (Fabaceae) Family Description: Cowhage, also known as velvet bean or cowitch, is a vine-like plant that is known for its ability to cause extreme itchiness. The plant is a climbing shrub with oval leaflets in groups of three growing off of short…
Castor bean, castor-oil plant, palma Christi – how to identify this poisonous plant and diagnose/treat poisoning.
Castor bean, castor-oil plant, palma Christi Ricinus communis Spurge (Euphorbiaceae) Family Description: The castor bean is a semi-woody, flowering plant with large, alternate, star-like leaves that grows as a tree in tropical regions and as an annual in temperate regions. Its glossy leaves grow to 15-45 centimeters (6-18 inches long…
Wild onion and garlic – edible wild plant – how to find, identify, prepare, and other uses for survival.
Wild onion and garlic (Allium species) Allium cernuum and Allium canadense are examples of the many species of wild onions and garlics, all easily recognized by their distinctive onion-like or garlic-like odor. Many have leaves located at the base that wither away as the flowers begin growing but the main…
Wild grape vine – edible wild plant – how to find, identify, prepare, and other uses for survival.
Wild grape vine (Vitis species) The wild grapevine climbs with the aid of “tendrils” on stems that are hairy when young but grow into hairless vines. Its bark is twining. The tendrils that are used for support grow opposite the leaves. Most grapevines produce deeply lobed leaves, alternately arranged, broad…
Wild gourd or luffa sponge – edible wild plant – how to find, identify, prepare, and other uses for survival.
Wild gourd or luffa sponge (Luffa aegyptiaca, Luffa cylindrica) The luffa sponge (also known as Smooth Luffa, Egyptian Luffa, or Wild Squash) is widely distributed and fairly typical of a wild squash. There are several dozen kinds of wild squashes in tropical regions. Like most squashes, the luffa is a…
