The villagers carefully watched what kind of snake it was. Since 10 a.m. on the 12th, in the downtown area of Zengcheng, Guangdong, an official village sprang up with hundreds of unknown snakes with triangular heads, causing panic among the villagers. These snakes entrenched themselves around the houses in the village, such as in grass, ditches, masonry beneath dark corners, and some even climbed into the villagers' homes.
Never having seen such snakes before, the villagers didn't know how venomous they were. The villagers couldn't sleep through the night, flooding everywhere with snakes, killing them, and alarming and notifying forestry and other professional staff to conduct a survey. Yesterday, the villagers had to kill over 300 snakes. Last night when reporters arrived, all the villagers were still in an atmosphere of unrest, seeking snakes everywhere. Snakes were everywhere in the grass and ditches in Kwun Tong Village on Fuk Road in Zengcheng City. The place with the most concentration of large snakes was Shek Kok agency in the village. The mountains were concentrated on a small hill, with more than 20 households.
Yesterday afternoon at about two thirty, reporters rushed to Kwun Tong Village. In the village, a few dozen men and women were still holding sticks, shovels, sickles, and other tools, catching snakes in the grass, shrubs, ditches, brick piles, and corners behind and in front of the houses in the village.
"Come and see, there is a snake." A villager poked at random in a clump of dense vegetation with a stick, finding a snake curled up inside, its head towards the group over the village, constantly lifting its triangular head swinging spit in the son. The villagers carefully picked the snake with the stick, "bang" several times, beating the hard-to-flatten head flat. Just after killing one snake, in another place, the village opened a housing adjacent stacked boards, several snakes spat letters from plank pile outward jumping chaos, standing beside the village sent bursts of screaming, hurriedly fled.
Reporters on the scene for just half an hour, the villagers could lift more than 20 snakes. "This is not much," a villager said, yesterday morning the villagers had found the village infested with snakes, "not with a stick about grass, (which) will have more than 10 snakes run out." Snakes entered the homes of villagers "evening suddenly appeared."
The president of the Stone Horn Club, Guo Jing, was the first to discover the village's snake problem. Guo Jing said that at around 10:03 in the morning, he drank at a friend's home, didn't bring the key, so he used a flashlight, went around to the back door to call his wife, "a snake lying in the housing behind the gutter, I use the torch light, it also erected, spitting a letter at my son." The drunk Guo Jing did not particularly care. The next morning, Guo Jing was still in bed. "How much ah" screams woke him up, coming out to look, found the front chamber lying six or seven dead snakes. His mother told Guo Jing that she got up early in the morning, cooking, and found a lot of snakes climbing into the kitchen. At about one o'clock, Guo Jing killed more than 10 snakes in the house.
These snakes looked like the same kind of snake, mostly grey with black markings flowers, body short, only the thumb thick, seventy or eighty cm long; looking fierce, aggressive encounter, will immediately set up, the head toward the target, continuous throughput mouth son. "Had never seen such a snake." At the age of 77, Stone Angle Club Village Guo Jixiu said, he lived as an old man, saw for the first time this snake. Outside his home and found the snake. Sulfur from hundreds of snakes at noon, Guo Jing led the whole society a few villagers, catching the snakes everywhere, killing them.
Around 3 pm, Kwun Tong Village Security Director Guo Yuchun got the news, guiding the whole village ten security team also added to catch the snake, snake kill. "All the men and women, old and young all out," said Guo Yuchun, we have never seen so many snakes, these snakes seemed suddenly airborne to Kwun Tong Village, making the villagers panic. Guo Jing went to the town center to buy 10 yuan worth of Brimstone scattered to the surrounding houses. "Ten minutes, some snakes from haystack, waste house, wood house to climb out." Guo Jing said, estimating that there are hundreds of snakes poured out, just down the village, beginning to be on one, to kill snakes.
Before seven fifty-five, the village of Guo Xiaojun called the police, half an hour later, Fu Station and four or five civilian police arrived at the scene, also joined the ranks of the snake. Snake action continued until yesterday morning at around one o'clock. In the evening, many villagers slept in one, holding a stick or tongs, hit the snake tools, spent a sleepless night. Guo Jing said, everyone was afraid of being bitten by a snake, the snake is found killed, to yesterday about two thirty in the afternoon, the village has killed more than 300 snakes.
Experts: Probably Short-Tailed Pit Viper
Dr. Hu Huijian of the Southern China Institute of Endangered Animals estimated that these snakes were likely short-tailed pit vipers gathering for mating. Under normal circumstances, a place appearing with a large number of snakes simultaneously can be attributed to three main reasons: one is that the place is a snake habitat area, now the weather gets warmer, hibernating snakes originally started activities; two is the result of recent rain, rainy weather is relatively low, the snake in the underground is more boring, so rain snakes will go to the ground; three is now various animal mating seasons, a large number of snakes appearing in the same area, it is possible to reproduce.
Dr. Hu Huijian thinks such a large-scale emergence of snakes is a natural phenomenon, may be the largest local snake inhabiting region and mating with other occasions, such as geological disaster, earthquake precursor, never mind. It is expected that after these snakes finish mating, they will return to their respective living areas.
At nine fifteen last night, Dr. Hu Huijian identified according to the picture provided by the reporter that the hundreds of snakes in Kwun Tong Village were short-tailed pit vipers, specific species remain to be further identification.
Yesterday afternoon, Zengcheng City Forestry Bureau staff with the local police station rushed to Kwun Tong Village for inspection. According to the South Metropolis Newspaper little information:
Short-tailed acutus: alias flies on grass, seven inch, distributed in most areas of our country. Inhabits plains, hills, and low mountains, or suburb, fields, creek ditch, circadian activity. Likes birds, rats, lizards, and frogs, eats snakes and fish. Ovoviviparous, litter size 2-14. Genus Xuexun drugs with neurotoxic, toxicity is strong. Because of its wide distribution, antitoxic drugs are easy, if not bitten, hotfix rhinestone, the local general hospitals are timely treatment.