Some of you have commented on the "Nopporo Forest Snake" post (June 22). Dr. Teruro Sato, Yukari's father, shed some light on that post and added some personal information. (He served for years in third world countries teaching farmers and ranchers proper husbandry techniques.) Here is his input:
The snake in your blog photos is highly probably a Japanese rat snake, and we call it Aodaisho in Japanese, which means Blue General (military). I do not know why it is so.
They used to live in my grandparents’ farm house, in particular in the ceiling under the roof during the winter season when it was 20 to 30℃ below zero [blogger note: approximately -4 to -22 Farenheit].
During the night the house inside became very cold after the fire went out, and the snakes crawled into the pocket of my uncle’s working wear hanging on the wall for drying. In the morning he tried to pick up something from the pocket and he gave a high touch with the snake, crying “woo woo."
This snake has no poison. During the Second World War my good friend was a good snake catcher, and he often grilled the snake meat over the charcoal fire for eating. It was really delicious!
In Hokkaido there is only one type of poisonous snake called a pit viper, which is short, looks brown dark, and quick in motion, and we always ran away in the bush as soon as we saw them.
So much for today.
[For further reference, Sato-san suggests: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_Rat_Snake]
1 comment:
My dad really looks like he is talking about the snake in the picture.
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