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Snake Island - Ilha de Queimada Grande
Off-limits and full of venomous pit vipers, its nickname is frighteningly apt
Category Anomalous Islands, Fascinating Fauna
Snake Island
Off the shore of Brazil, almost 93 miles away from São Paulo downtown, same distance between Manhattan NY, Atlantic City Airport, is Ilha de Queimada Grande. The island is untouched by human developers, and for very good reason. Researchers estimate that on the island live between one and five snakes per square meter. The snakes live on the many migratory birds (enough to keep the snake density remarkably high) that use the island as a resting point.
That figure might not be so terrible if the snakes were, say, 2 inches long and nonvenomous. The snakes on Queimada Grande, however, are a unique species of pit viper, the golden lancehead. The lancehead genus of snakes is responsible for 90% of Brazilian snakebite-related fatalities. The golden lanceheads that occupy Snake Island grow to well over half a meter long, and they possess a powerful fast-acting poison that melts the flesh around their bites. Golden lanceheads are so dangerous that, with the exception of some scientific outfits, the Brazilian Navy has expressly forbidden anyone from landing on the island.
Locals in the coastal towns near Queimada Grande love to recount two grisly tales of death on the island. In one, a fisherman unwittingly wanders onto the island to pick bananas. Naturally, he is bitten. He manages to return to his boat, where he promptly succumbs to the snake's venom. He is found some time later on the boat deck in a great pool of blood.
The other story is of the final lighthouse operator and his family. One night, a handful of snakes enter through a window and attack the man, his wife, and their three children. In a desperate gambit to escape, they flee towards their boat, but they are bitten by snakes on branches overhead.
Marcelo Duarte, a biologist who has visited Snake Island over twenty times, says that the locals' claim of one to five snakes per square meter is an exaggeration, though perhaps not by much. One snake per square meter is more like it. Not that that should ease one's mind: At one snake per meter, you're never more than three feet away from death.
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- Hours Off-limits without special permits
- Address Sao Paulo, Brazil
Presently, reaching the island legally requires the cooperation of the Brazilian Navy. A particularly daring tourist could hypothetically travel to Peruíbe or Itanhaém (approx. 1.5-2.5 hours from downtown São Paulo) and convince a local with a boat to approach the island, but doing so is dangerous and illegal. Golden lanceheads can legally be seen at the Butantã Institute in São Paulo if one asks politely.
Comments
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Anonymous
January 25, 2012
The snake venom has been known to rot your skin off the bone. -
Anonymous
November 29, 2011
é logico que há algo mais nessa ilha para que ninguém vá lá pois é forte rumores de óvines e algo há ser protegido pois conheço pessoas que viram objetos estranhos em volta dessa ilha.. e digo que é a melhor resposta por essas cobras morarem lá...
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Anonymous
August 30, 2010
Sorry for any errors of grammar. I'm from Brazil and this island is real, snakes feed on migratory birds called atobás, who by chance stop on the island, since the population this bird is very large (they can be compared with the population of pigeons) will never lack food for snakes.
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Imagine...If bitten...you would be dead in only a matter of minutes...and there is nothing, nothing, anyone can do! I am a risk taker, but a calculating one, and there are no odds on this one.
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Anonymous
April 3, 2010
This article was posted on April 1st, correct?
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Anonymous
April 3, 2010
I think there is something else going on here. At one snake every three feet nothing else could live on the island, including the snakes themselves. After a few days, there would be no prey for them to feed on (snakes don't eat bananas, right?). No prey, no snakes. So, there is something else here. Like maybe a few snakes and a huge gold mine, or a nuclear reactor, or a tree that does grow money.
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For a TERRIFIC novel about a snake-infested island in South America, read ISLE OF THE SNAKES by Robert L. Fish.
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Anonymous
November 8, 2009
I agree with the Congress statement...hehehe...those snakes would never be hungry again, and half of them would be fatally poisoned...
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Anonymous
November 8, 2009
Can we send members of the U.S. Congress here for a short vacation?
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Anonymous
August 28, 2009
To the last anonymous poster, it might interest you to watch this BBC/Discovery Channel video on the island. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikz7x5NRM2c
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Anonymous
August 27, 2009
Well, this is just bullshit. At one snake per square meter, what is supposed to feed those snakes? A mouse would only make it three feet right?
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Anonymous
August 21, 2009
Don't you mean that its nickname is <em>frighteningly asp? ;-)
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