I had an earlier post with a video of a snake, a "boa" that we observed crossing the road. I don't know Amazonian reptiles; I was simply reporting the identification made by a guide from the lodge. Boas are not venomous, so we felt secure approaching (within a foot) the snake. Maishe picked up its tail as it slid into the forest.
A friend, entomologist, and high school student (Matt) looked at my blog and commented: It is a fer-de-lance! (these are pit vipers, responsible for more snake bites in South America than other species). So I thought I should look it up. Checking for fer-de-lance and boa, I found no matches on google for the coloration of the snake in my video. But I did find a perfect match for the bushmaster, Lachesis muta. The Spanish name for bushmaster is "matabuey," or ox-killer. It is considerably larger than the fer-de-lance, but less common. Wikipedia says:
This snake is capable of multiple-bite strikes and the injection of large amounts of venom. Even the bite of a juvenile specimen can be fatal. However, this snake is rarely encountered so snakebite incidents are not common.
So I had my brush with danger. My wife is horrified. Moral: If you are in the Amazon at night, don't trust anyone else for snake identification.
Photos below: 1) Taken from the Internet. Distinctive features: downward-pointing triangles with an internal blotch; dark line posterior from eye. 2) Snake I went eye-to-eye with.