dryophis

Updated: May 24, 2025

Once for a few moments I got completely entangled in the folds of one, a wonderfully slender kind, being nearly six feet in length, and not more than half an inch in diameter at its broadest part. It was a species of Dryophis. The majority of the snakes seen were innocuous.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

There was another kind found amongst bushes on the borders of the forest closely allied to this, but much more slender, viz., the Dryophis acuminata. This grows to a length of four feet eight inches, the tail alone being twenty-two inches; but the diameter of the thickest part of the body is little more than a quarter of an inch.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons

This animated liana turned out to be a pale-green snake, the Dryophis fulgida. Its whole body is of the same green hue, and it is thus rendered undistinguishable amidst the foliage of the Guajara bushes, where it prowls in search of its prey treefrogs and lizards. The forepart of its head is prolonged into a slender pointed beak, and the total length of the reptile was six feet.

Henry Walter Bates - The Naturalist on the River Amazons