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Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo
"When a Grayia strikes at her, she lets it bite—finally proving to her horrified guide that it isn’t poisonous."
Mean and Lowly Things: Snakes, Science, and Survival in the Congo by Kate Jackson (Harvard University Press, $27.95)
Sleeping on the floor of the Congolese jungle with only a tarp beneath her, herpetologist Kate Jackson dreams of “a luxurious palace, with soft couches and thick carpets, and filled with snakes of many different species.” Catching reptiles and amphibians for the Smithsonian Institution is no tropical holiday—her hired guide sulks and occasionally fails to show up, her cook endlessly prepares macaroni and canned pork, and worst of all, her nets often turn up empty. But each day she optimistically wades hip-deep through the flooded forest in hopes of capturing a magnificent water cobra or a new venomous snake. “The sense of living things interacting, humming all around me, is palpable,” Jackson writes. And she immerses herself in that ecosystem.
When a Grayia strikes at her from the net, she lets it bite—proving once and for all to her horrified guide that it isn’t, actually, poisonous.