From Madagascar with love, snake in bathroom

Living in a nature reserve provides wonderful opportunities to enjoy wild animals, but occasionally encounters are disturbing. When Jocelyne took a shower on the first floor of our house, she suddenly noticed movement. It was a snake!

There are no dangerous snakes in Madagascar, but she screamed  nonetheless and next grabbed a towel to move the serpent onto the terrace. The snake turned out to be the Common Big-Eyed Snake or Mimophis mahafalensis, the females generally being greyish to brownish, this one with a prominent zigzag band along the back. These snakes are often observed during the day, looking on the ground for prey, usually lizards, other snakes or frogs. However, at night they climb into trees and thus reach our house via the leaves of a Dypsis madagascariensis palm or the branches of an adjacent Gondara (mixa).