This beautiful Oriental Whip Snake made itself known by plopping onto the ground directly in front of me as I attempted to photograph some tiny frogs. I'm guessing I must have brushed against the vegetation to which it had been clinging, causing it to release its grip in an attempt to escape a potentially fearsome predator. Why hello, beautiful little snake! Since it is a famously arboreal species, I put it back onto a branch before photography commenced, whereupon it chose this attractive pose.

My Travelogues and Trip Lists page includes a complete list of the herps I saw in the wild on this trip to Malaysia, as well as a travelogue of the trip.

The next night, I found this second one in the more traditional way: walking slowly through the forest and scanning the vegetation with my flashlight.

And the night after that I found three more, though only two are pictured here. The first was large and bright green and awake, showing off the upper-body strength of this species (first and second photos above). The second was smaller and yellow/gold and sound asleep. The third one was way up high, too far for a photo. I could probably have deployed a long stick to encourage it to come down and join me for a modeling session, but I felt no need to disturb its beauty rest.