Super Rare Blue Viper Caught!

0:00 I feel like we're Seal Team six.

0:02 It does feel like Seal Team six right now.

0:04 We're infiltrating the island.

0:05 We're the Viper squad.

0:07 (dramatic music) Wow, look at it, it's so bright in coloration.

0:13 And it's been about an hour and a half since we've seen a snake, so.

0:17 Maybe this patch here will be the lucky spot.

0:21 I'm not gonna call it.

0:22 I'm just gonna keep looking for this blue viper.

0:25 We are exhausted.

0:26 The bulldozer, coming through.

0:28 (yelps) I just got stabbed.

0:31 Okay, tonight we're going on a rather epic adventure.

0:35 We're headed off of the boat and toward the island of Padar.

0:38 Padar is one of the 17,500 or so islands in the Indonesian island chain.

0:45 And this is the only island where you can find a very

0:49 unique pit viper species that we're gonna be looking for tonight.

0:51 So we've got one shot at this, let's make it happen.

0:55 Bro, you kidding me?

0:56 I forgot my flashlight.

0:59 You need it?

1:00 [Coyote] Yeah.

1:01 Whoa, whoa, whoa, what did you say?

1:03 Just, I forgot my flashlight.

1:06 [Mario] You forgot your flashlight?

1:07 You've got to be ready for combat.

1:08 I, I think I left it on my bed.

1:10 Maybe it's in this pocket?

1:12 No.

1:13 [Mario] Okay.

1:14 Don't have my flashlight.

1:15 For everyone witnessing.

1:15 I'm going to give him this flashlight to use tonight.

1:17 He's gonna give it back to me at the end of the night.

1:19 That's true, yeah, thank you Mario.

1:21 Ooh, cool, look at the spooky dock.

1:23 Tom Cruise could do it.

1:27 Thanks Ajis.

1:28 Nothing like getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere.

1:30 There goes the boat.

1:31 Bye.

1:32 [Mario] Stars are pretty crazy out here.

1:34 Even with all the lights of all the boats.

1:35 If you just dim your light, you can see everything.

1:38 Very clearly, way more than you would in the city.

1:42 [Coyote] Now, Argis also said there is a chance

1:44 we could see a sleeping Komodo dragon on this island.

1:47 These dragons do not live on the island frequently,

1:50 but they will occasionally stop over to sleep.

1:53 So we will keep our eyes peeled.

1:56 Oh, there's a rodent.

1:57 There goes a mouse, look at him.

1:59 There's a rat right there.

2:01 Alright, we've already seen some prey items.

2:02 (suspenseful music) Ooh, at these turds.

2:06 Goat.

2:08 Been some goats out here, I see the tracks.

2:11 The environment that we're walking around in right now,

2:13 honestly seems like the last place where you'd find a super rare snake.

2:17 It's really just a bunch of dried up grasses and dead plants.

2:21 (suspenseful music)- [Mario] Oh, snake.

2:27 See one?

2:28 Oh yeah, yeah, we got one right here, green one.

2:30 Oh no, this is not, this is not what we're looking for.

2:34 Max!

2:35 [Max] yes?

2:35 Just wanna make sure that this is.

2:36 [Max] It's moving.

2:37 (suspenseful music)- [Ajis] That's bronzeback.

2:44 Oh, I lost him.

2:47 I missed him.

2:48 We saw our first snake, but we didn't catch it.

2:50 It's because I needed to ask Max first.

2:53 You have to know for sure that something's non venomous before you grab it.

2:56 There are a lot of very unassuming looking snakes in this environment.

2:59 And you grab something that's venomous unknowingly,

3:04 it could be a really bad play.

3:07 Okay, we might have a sleeping Komodo dragon.

3:10 Oh yeah, this seems safe.

3:11 Going into the underbrush.

3:13 (suspenseful music) Oh yeah, we did it, we did it.

3:18 We got a sleeping Komodo dragon.

3:21 That might be one of the biggest Komodo dragons we've seen.

3:24 He's an absolute giant.

3:27 It's interesting how they don't quite go all the way back into a hole.

3:31 You've just got an overhang with roots and his head is tucked down.

3:35 It's like when the sun's starting to come out and you

3:37 put your head underneath your pillow and you try to keep sleeping.

3:41 Then again, there's not necessarily anything other than us that's

3:43 gonna come up and try to mess with the sleepy dragon.

3:45 Maybe I can sneak up under there and get a photo.

3:50 He's kind of moving, better make this quick.

3:54 Definitely not gonna touch him.

3:55 (suspenseful music) (camera clicking) All right, well,

4:06 too many shadows with all the roots for the flashlights.

4:09 But pretty cool being this close to a komodo dragon when it's sleeping.

4:16 This is not one we want to disturb though, so we're gonna keep moving.

4:20 We have got a baby tokay gecko.

4:23 I'm gonna try to catch this.

4:25 Good spotting, holy cow.

4:28 It's right here.

4:30 (suspenseful music) Got him.

4:42 Okay.

4:43 Ow, classic tokay gecko, biting my finger.

4:47 Oh my goodness.

4:49 This is the cutest little tiny gecko I have ever seen.

4:53 My favorite gecko species in the world.

4:56 The tokay gecko.

4:57 Now they get big and they bite hard, especially when they're a lot bigger.

5:03 So you notice, that gecko was pointed downward on that branch.

5:07 Any little bug that comes up the edge is gonna be fair game.

5:10 But when these geckos get bigger, they'll actually eat other gecko species,

5:14 other lizards, even birds and small mammals.

5:17 What an absolutely adorable little guy.

5:21 I can't believe it.

5:23 A tiny, tiny tokay gecko.

5:25 All right, we're gonna put you right back

5:26 on the tree that we found you on bud, okay.

5:29 Never expect to see one of these.

5:31 All right, buddy, back up on this little branch.

5:35 I get picture of him like that.

5:37 Now, one of my goals on this trip when we're

5:39 in Bali is to actually find a much larger tokay gecko.

5:42 While I've been bitten by them before,

5:44 I want to get bitten by one in its native range.

5:47 All the tokay gecos that I've ever caught have been invasive species in Florida.

5:50 So I've seen a tiny one, now we gotta find a big one.

5:54 Okay, this is my chance for redemption.

5:57 We found another one of those racers that I missed earlier.

6:00 Let's go for it.

6:01 (suspenseful music) There you have it.

6:07 That is a bronze back, I misspoke.

6:09 It's not a racer, I thought it was this type of racer.

6:11 They actually look a lot like a tree snake mixed with a garter snake.

6:15 Fortunately no biting, that's a good sign.

6:18 What a cool snake though.

6:19 You can see how powerful and rubber like that body is.

6:22 Look, they're just like a vine snake, able to really hold their bodies out.

6:25 Not the snake species we're looking for, but any animal

6:28 that we can pack into this adventure is a good sign.

6:32 You gonna bite me?

6:33 No, okay, cool.

6:34 We're gonna put you right back on the tree and search for those vipers.

6:37 (upbeat music) Bye bye.

6:41 (upbeat music) Okay.

6:45 Gonna duck under this, watch your eyes.

6:47 Dang!

6:49 Bulldozer coming through.

6:52 (yelps), I just got stabbed.

6:55 You gotta be kidding me.

6:59 Where are we?

7:00 [Max] Ular, green ular.

7:03 Oh, Max got a green one!

7:05 Alright, copy, we're coming your way.

7:08 Leave it to Max.

7:09 Found our first snake.

7:11 [Max] See him on the ground?

7:13 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

7:15 (suspenseful music) Wow, look at it, it's so bright in coloration.

7:22 Oh, he starting to move.

7:23 (suspenseful music) All right, there we go.

7:33 Bite proof gloves working real good right now.

7:36 Okay.

7:37 My goal here is to get it to just chill on the stick.

7:41 Let's see if we can make some magic here.

7:44 Perfect.

7:46 Oh, there it is.

7:48 The green phase of the island Viper.

7:51 So much more vibrant than I imagined it was going to be.

7:55 And this is exactly what we would've expected to see.

7:58 Is it just hanging on a branch like this in ambush pose.

8:02 But as we walked up, max said it was probably coming off the ground,

8:06 getting ready to position itself.

8:07 Now I was able to pick it up with the bite proof gloves

8:10 because their fangs are way too small to be able to penetrate these gloves.

8:14 But putting it on the stick just helps keep it a little bit more calm.

8:17 That way I don't have to actually squeeze down on it with my fingers.

8:21 All right, getting rid of this glove.

8:23 What a beautiful snake.

8:25 It almost doesn't look real.

8:27 It looks like a rubber kids toy.

8:31 And when we're talking about the three different color phases,

8:33 green is the most common.

8:35 So we pretty much expected to see a green one.

8:38 Finding blue will be a little bit more difficult,

8:40 although we put in some effort so far.

8:42 And the yellow, of course, is the toughest.

8:45 Now, like all pit vipers,

8:46 they have heat sensing pits right on the front of their face.

8:48 This is exactly how that snake would be hunting,

8:51 just waiting, lying in ambush, for anything to get close.

8:55 Now a snake of this size is not gonna eat something as big as a rat,

8:58 but it would be eating the baby rats that are

8:59 on the island and definitely taking advantage of geckos.

9:03 So these snakes are found on a number of the different Indonesian islands.

9:07 But this is a very unique place because you can find all three color phases.

9:12 And based on the size, Max was telling me that this is likely a male.

9:16 The males are smaller than the females,

9:18 which we oftentimes see in a number of different snake species.

9:21 Whether I'm in the field chasing the elusive Blue Viper

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10:28 (dramatic music) Now, there's no record of anybody having died

10:36 from being bitten by one of these snakes.

10:37 And if I were to accidentally be bitten, it's unlikely I'd need anti-venom.

10:41 There'd just be a lot of swelling and uncomfortableness for a few days.

10:44 But that's not a risk that I want to take.

10:47 Cause you never know how your body's gonna react to any venom.

10:50 I'm just gonna go ahead and touch it with my finger.

10:54 Wow, it's very— Wow!

10:58 Careful buddy.

11:01 Look at him holding onto that branch with his tail like that, that's awesome.

11:06 I guess that's probably a good point for us to put him back off into the wild.

11:09 But there he have it.

11:10 We got the green phase.

11:11 Now we gotta find the blue and the yellow.

11:13 (dramatic music) Check that out,

11:18 Max is finally getting to use his really nifty herping tool.

11:22 It has the ability to use a black light to fluoresce critters.

11:27 And we just found this little bark scorpion.

11:31 A little angry at the moment,

11:32 otherwise I'd let go of his telson, he'll probably sting me.

11:36 Let's just see what happens.

11:37 (suspenseful music) Cool.

11:48 (dramatic music) (Coyote circus hums) This is

11:54 not an easy environment to navigate.

11:56 So we've spread out in multiple directions.

11:59 Everybody's searching for yellow and blue snakes.

12:04 Hey, you'd think a bright blue snake would just stand out like a sore thumb.

12:08 [Cameraman] Alright, tell me about this blue viper, Mario.

12:11 Simple, it's a viper and it's blue.

12:14 The more that we are not finding it, the more I want to find it.

12:17 Cause we're hyping it up so much.

12:19 We tend to do that, right?

12:20 When we're searching for a species,

12:22 we hype it up so much that it becomes like an obsession.

12:26 And we try hard to find one.

12:29 But then there's a point where we give up.

12:32 It's nine o'clock, so who's gonna give up first?

12:35 Is it gonna be Trent?

12:36 Is Trent gonna say, hey dude, I'm, you know, I'm kind of hungry.

12:39 We gotta go back, get some Mackers.

12:40 Only that's not gonna happen this time.

12:42 Or is it gonna be Coyote, who's gonna say,

12:43 dude, I'm whooped guys, let's, let's just call it.

12:47 I'm not gonna call it.

12:48 I'm just gonna keep looking for this blue viper.

12:52 [Cameraman] Well, the important thing to remember is

12:53 we gotta film Komodos at seven in the morning.

12:55 7:00 AM?

12:57 I got a good swatch of trees right in front of me here.

13:00 Check this out.

13:01 And it's been about an hour and a half since we've seen a snake.

13:04 So maybe this patch here will be the lucky spot.

13:10 We are exhausted.

13:11 But you don't ever give up.

13:13 You don't give up until you're in your bed.

13:16 Gotta keep pushing, there's gotta be.

13:19 This is sometimes how much work it takes.

13:21 It's a lot more difficult to find animals than you would think.

13:24 And we know that this is an area where these snakes have been spotted before,

13:28 which is exactly why we're in this spot, but they are not making it easy.

13:36 Okay, so as of now, I think we're gonna call it a night.

13:40 We have been searching for hours and we have not

13:42 been able to find a blue or a yellow viper.

13:46 Six green ones.

13:47 (team hollering) Oh, really?

13:51 Blue one!

13:52 Just like that, I was literally just wrapping it up!

13:55 Let's go!

13:59 Oh my gosh.

14:02 Yes, there's one, this is amazing!

14:06 Yes!

14:08 Holy cow!

14:09 It's up higher too.

14:12 11th hour, this is the one.

14:16 We were just standing here.

14:17 We're like, okay, so we're gonna change it up.

14:19 We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this.

14:20 And if we do this, and then he just looks up, he's like, oh my god, blue.

14:23 (group laughing)- That's epic.

14:27 Sometimes that's just how things work out.

14:29 (upbeat music) That's why we wear bite proof gloves.

15:03 Some times you have to just.

15:05 If he got higher up in the tree and we lost him,

15:08 that would be the end of the night.

15:10 My goodness, look at that snake.

15:12 Alright, I'm gonna get it out onto the snake hook here.

15:15 So we can have a really good look at it.

15:19 Wow, look how beautiful that snake is, oh my goodness.

15:23 Have you ever seen something so elegant looking?

15:27 Beautiful teal bluish coloration.

15:30 And that is the quintessential famous color phase

15:34 that people have been sending us photos of for years,

15:37 saying, Coyote, you have to get to the Indonesian

15:39 islands so that you can film with this island viper.

15:42 Likely also a male given the size that it is about

15:45 the same size as the green one that we found earlier.

15:48 Yeah, buddy, I know you were just up there in ambush

15:51 hunting a little higher than your green buddies were, weren't you?

15:54 Let me do this.

15:56 See if I just gotta balance them on the glove there.

15:59 So you can really see a difference between the blue phase and the green phase.

16:06 A stark difference, same exact snake species, different color morph.

16:13 That is truly a gorgeous animal and it has taken

16:16 us hours tonight searching up and down through this arid environment.

16:21 Incredibly difficult to walk through, all of these gripping underbrush shrubs.

16:28 I mean just beating the heck out of us.

16:31 And I sat up there on the hillside, I was exhausted.

16:34 My arm is super swollen from the hornet sting.

16:38 You see how huge my arm is at the moment.

16:39 I'm tired, I'm in a lot of pain.

16:42 But I said, you can't give up until you literally get into your bed.

16:46 And lo and behold, we were ready to call

16:48 it and the universe gave us this moment.

16:50 Gave us the most beautiful snake that you can find in Indonesia,

16:54 the blue phase island Viper.

16:56 And there it is.

16:58 Wow.

16:59 Well, same exact facts that I would've given you with the green one,

17:03 ambush predator, toxic venom, but not so toxic that it would send you

17:07 to the hospital unless you had an allergic reaction.

17:10 And I think the best thing to just do right now is be thankful

17:12 for finding it and just get the chance to admire how incredibly beautiful it is.

17:17 It's not oftentimes in nature that you see things that are blue.

17:20 Blue stands out, and oftentimes blue animals are easily preyed upon.

17:25 But for some reason the snakes on this island are thriving.

17:29 No real predators on this island,

17:31 surprisingly other than hogs that would kill these snakes.

17:34 No feral cats, no wild cats.

17:37 But these snakes are feeding on geckos, skinks, and baby rodents.

17:41 And this snake up in the tree like that is probably taking

17:44 more of an opportunity to get geckos than it is anything else.

17:49 Look at you, just behaving so incredibly well.

17:51 Now the snake has not struck a single time,

17:53 even when I picked it up out of the tree using the bite proof gloves.

17:56 And that's just proof that even as a venomous snake,

17:59 it's not something that you necessarily ever need to be afraid of.

18:02 Not something you wanna go outta your way to just pick up.

18:04 You always wanna admire venomous snakes from a safe distance,

18:06 but so thankful to find you buddy.

18:10 We worked long and hard and even Ajis,

18:12 who's an expert at finding these vipers, walked a considerable distance.

18:16 Of course, it was just at that perfect

18:19 ending moment where we came across the Blue Viper.

18:22 (dramatic music) I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild.

18:30 We'll see you on the next adventure.

18:31 Alright, let's get an epic thumbnail and head back to the boat.

18:36 A little bit (dramatic music) If he completely goes around.

18:47 Well, we are on our walk back to the boat and it is a walk of victory.

18:53 We finally found the blue Viper.

18:56 It is so much later than I think we anticipated being out,

18:59 but when you get the snake you're after

19:03 or whatever the animal is that you're after, boy does it feel like a good win.

19:08 Tomorrow, we wake up and we head to Komodo Island

19:12 to see Komodos proper on the island where they get their namesake.

19:17 Okay, I am less than just a couple feet away from a full grown Komodo dragon.

19:23 This thing is absolutely epic from the tip of its snout to the tip of its tail.

19:28 This is the largest lizard on the planet.

19:32 The biggest of the monitors.

19:34 And it has taken 10 years to get to this point.

19:37 Right now, the dragon is looking right at me, huge, massive front claws.

19:41 And the thing that's different about Komodo dragons as compared

19:44 to other monitor lizards is the robustness of their bodies.

19:49 All of that muscular structure, not only in the forearms,

19:52 but in the hind limbs and that tail.

19:54 (animals calling) (dramatic music)