[John S Mosby]

Moccasins are far more dangerous than rattlesnakes. For one thing, they have no rattles to warn with, which rattlers do all the time- you’re right they are good at hiding and do not want encounters with predators. Moccasins on the other hand are near or in water/swamp and so dark have a hard time seeing them. Their bite wound is quite dangerous and the wound even well treated can rot tissue from the toxins- having to have amputations or skin grafts to replace the dead tissue. Finally, they are quite aggressive and will chase people on land and even in water.
Reminds me of the black mamba with a similar reputation and greater speed. Many years ago colleagues and I used to hunt/collect snakes and another had a business milking pit viper snakes for venom to make anti-venin serum for bite kits. He almost lost his whole arm when struck by a king cobra he was milking (and had milked for years- just made a bad move to grab it).

[rlmorel]

I lived in Subic Bay as a kid, and one day while we were waiting for the bus, my friend next door (the son of a USMC Colonel) rushed up and told me they had a snake in their house.

They lived next door to us, and we had these houses with a carport and the bottom floor that you walked into from the carport was kind of like a three season room with screens and plastic sheeting, not really sealed off, had drainage pipes a few inches across open to the outside, and the snake must have crawled in through one of them.

Someone had called base security, so some kind of animal control person was on the way, but...nobody was watching the snake or near the door. We ran over at top speed, and cautiously opened the door to peek in.

In the far corner, there was, motionless, what looked like a heavy black rubber garden hose, but a lot thicker than a garden hose, but stacked in a coil like a garden hose would be.

Someone came by and shooed us away, and we had to get on the bus, but found out later it was a King Cobra, and a good sized one, too!

My other best friend's father was a LCDR who was a hospital administrator at the base hospital up near Cubi Point, and he had some kind of formal interaction/function with the SERE (survival training) program that they ran up there for pilots during the Vietnam War.

I was so jealous-he was one grade below me in school, and his sister was in my grade, but...his two older brothers were juniors and seniors in high school. These guys got to do everything, they had scuba gear, Hawaiian slings, and honest to goodness spear guns! They had special jackets they wore around with their names embroidered on them...one had "Jake" and the younger one had "Lucifer"! (I never found out what the deal was with that embroidered name...it was likely edgy and rebellious) I was in awe of this guy's older brothers.

One day when I was over at his house and everyone was gone, he said "You want to see something really cool?" (of course I did)

He went over to a hall closet, and pulled down what looked like a rolled up fire hose. He rolled it down the hall to unfold it, and...I was a giant snake skin! It was cool-and yeah, I was impressed! His father had apparently shot it up there at the SERE site where they did the training.

This picture appeared in the paper one day taken at the airfield fire house in the Cubi Point area, so they must have had a lot of these things over there! (I was told they found this one wrapped around the axle of a fire truck!)