Common lancehead Facts
Common lancehead Facts
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| Interesting Common lancehead Facts: |
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| Common lancehead can reach 5 to 6 feet (rarely up to 8 feet) in length. Females are larger than males. |
| Common lancehead can be grey, brown, olive-green, beige or yellow colored. Dorsal and lateral sides of the body are usually covered with dark blotches with light-colored edges. Bottom side of the body is white, creamy or yellow in color. |
| Common lancehead has large, broad head that is flat at the top and shaped like a spear. |
| Name "lancehead" refers to pointed, lance-shaped head of this snake ("fer-de-lance" means "lance head" in the French language). |
| Common lancehead has strong, heavy body, black tongue and golden or bronze-colored eyes adapted for the night vision. |
| Common lancehead is nocturnal creature (active during the night). |
| Common lancehead is terrestrial animal (adapted to the life on the ground). |
| Common lancehead is fast and agile animal. Besides on the solid ground, it can easily catch the prey in the water or on the trees. |
| Common lancehead is able to detect precise position of the mammals and birds during the night thanks to heat-sensing pits (organs used for detection of warm-blooded creatures), located between the nostrils and eyes. |
| Common lancehead is a carnivore (meat-eater). Its diet is based on small mammals, birds and lizards. Young snakes hunt and eat arthropods and lizards. |
| Common lancehead is aggressive by nature. It is responsible for more than half of the snake bites in South America. Common lancehead produces strong hemotoxic venom (venom which destroys blood cells and blood vessels and leads to massive internal bleeding). Common lancehead often hides on the plantations of coffee and bananas where it hunts rodents. It attacks unaware farmers and workers when they approach close enough. Bite of common lancehead can end up fatally. All victims require urgent medical attention. |
| Common lanceheads are able to breed all year round. |
| Female gives birth to 60 to 80 live babies after pregnancy of 3 to 4 months. Gravid females spend a lot of time in the sun to increase body temperature and ensure successful development of embryos. |
| Babies are 12 inches long at birth. They have yellow or beige tail and brightly-colored body. Despite small size, common lancehead are extremely dangerous (venomous) from the moment of birth. |
| Common lancehead can survive up to 8.5 years in the captivity. |
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