Bushmaster

The most scared I have ever been as the result of an encounter with another living creature involved a close call with a Fer-de-Lance (Bothrops asper) along a trail in Panama. Even after the encounter was over, I felt physically ill for most an hour. Yet even so, my fascination for this astonishingly beautiful as well as highly venomous viper grew as a result of the experience.

So when I heard that Dan Eatherley had recently published Bushmaster: Raymond Ditmars and the Hunt for the World’s Largest Viper under the Arcade imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, I knew that this was a book I had to read. After all, for as remarkable as the Fer-de-Lance is, the Bushmaster, (Lachesis muta – “silent fate”) is the largest member of the entire Viperidae family. And as Ditmars, world renowned herpetologist that he was, devoted a substantial part of his remarkable life to finding one in the rainforests of South America… well, the story just about writes itself.