[quote=“Belgian Pie”]
Yep, he turned them into eels … in which case the Japanese can help with an eel problem, they love to eat them … as do the Taiwanese and the Dutch …[/quote]
and cockneys
Some Japanese prefer eel-ingestion via the other alimentary end.
Thanks merge, very interesting thread. Sandman, you are right, it makes more sense.
I actually asked a friend in charge of that field at CDC (Center for Disease Control) and he hadn’t heard the story before, and he is retiring soon after 30+ years of service, so I guess, officially, nobody cared to give any veracity to the story.
“Maybe” my cousin just has that special resentment towards the Japanese colonialism rule.
actually i ran into a Chinese cobra a few months ago… it tried to attack my bike… beautiful snake !!!
i didn’t know that there were so many kinds of snakes here in Taiwan… not that i ever checked, but i just though that…
nice work man keep going !! 
This is really useful for me, as we have a few different snakes on our land and with kids I want to know about these snakes.
Does anyone know a site or book that introduces spiders and other insects in Taiwan in English?
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40221&l=c1cc5&id=646250747
I’m hoping one of these links works. We encountered 2 of these snakes at the great swimming hole in Wulai in the Red/Happy River Valley. They were in the water with us and they freaked us out. I’ve tried comparing it to snakes on your site but I can’t quite match it. Any ideas?
i think it’s a Sauter’s water snake, Amphemia sauteri. i see a few of them so i guess they’re fairly common. fairly harmless, they hunt frogs and lizards.
but of course, when in doubt, give it a wide berth.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s the one. Thank you for that. One of them swam over to us while we were chilling on some rocks, and I had to pour some beer on it, which made it go away.
Just a little while later, while hiking out on the trail, an enormous green snake emerged from the grass about 10 meters ahead of us. Must have been 6-7 feet long, slithered along the trail, then slid down the steep hillside. Can’t quite match that one either. Back in June, too far back for my memory.
This is excellent twoton, I haven’t been fortunate enough to come across any live snakes yet in Taiwan and I’ve been here over 3 years.
Move to Nantou county - I see snakes all the time here. We had one in the house once, many years ago. other people I know have had them show up in their beds 