Oh, it’s flat alright. Flat and baked in the hot asphalt Sun. As if slid off a scalding stone slab. Like a thin crust pizza from a wood-fired oven. And then run over dozens of times.
I’m peering down at a roadkill snake with my forearms across my bicycle handlebars. It’s not the first snake I’ve seen like this. The snake has taken on the pebbly road textured surface and looks more like a long zigzag bookmark than a reptile. A bumpy bookmark for a tall volume. (More on bookmarks later.)
Unfortunately, Dakeng’s snakes are prone to vehicular rubber. Dakeng is the group of hills at Taichung City’s east end. Fatalities occur when snakes cross a road or warm themselves on the radiant road heat. Other than winter, snakes are at risk year-round, and the snake species flattened varies with the seasons. With approximately 60 snake species on the island, although not all in Dakeng, that’s a lot of different snakes.
Some roadkill snakes look like they have swallowed a stick of dynamite, while others appear napping without a scratch. Their post-collision condition depends on how fast the vehicle was travelling and what snake body area was hit. The array of roadkill species rotates with the seasons. Spring brings out the harmless Greater green snake, almost in unison with the extremely shy but highly venomous Many-Banded krait. The krait, a black and white striped nocturnal hunter, becomes an unseen victim to cars and scooters.
Others follow as summer progresses: Taiwan cobra, Taiwan habu and the Bamboo viper, all venomous, become causalities. Other, harmless snakes that also succumb include the Asian many-toothed snake, Formosa wolf snake, Red-banded snake and a variety of rat snakes species.
Like all roadkill, it is a needless waste, and living and working close to Dakeng I have seen my share of dead snakes cycling the hills and farmland roads below.
***
I am a writer but also an English bilingual teacher. My previous school, where I taught until last year, borders the city and is plunked down in a semi-rural setting, although the city is advancing. It is still surrounded by a farm, fields, acres of open grasslands, and trees. I saw my first cobra scurrying across the road that passes by my old school just a few hundred metres south.
Years later, on that same road, but north a few hundred metres, I found a tiny juvenile Many-banded krait pummeled into the pavement, and so bone-dry it looked more like parchment than a snake. I peeled it off the asphalt and later laminated it into a bookmark. It still startles me when I read with it next to me while in bed.
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| the bookmark that surprises |
At that same elementary school, now and again, juvenile cobras stray into the playground from the outlying fields. Once, after a typhoon, an adult cobra found shelter in a cafeteria storage cupboard in the school’s basement and was discovered by a screeching kitchen auntie. One cobra even took refuge in a first-floor office cabinet. Since Taiwan rarely experiences cold weather, snug door seals are not required. Snakes don’t need much space to squeeze through.
Now teachers are notorious for scrounging classroom resources. Educators are always looking for ways and materials to help students better understand their environment in new and innovative ways. And after cycling around dead snakes for years, I had an idea.
What if I collected specimens, learned to preserve them, and used those snakes in my classroom to help introduce local wildlife to kids? What if I could help kids see from their desks that the hills outside the classroom windows are home to the creatures they are holding in their hands?
Perhaps the snakes are better left for scavengers. But I think a few pickled specimens introduced to curious kids might help spark interest and help them understand the variety of animal species close by.
The first snake I collected was a foot long Many-banded krait on a narrow, grass-lined, paved path. It was inching out, beginning its five-foot wiggle to safety when it was hit by a scooter. Half in and half out. Its head flat as a knife blade. The body was still undamaged, supple, and fresh in the morning coolness. I finished my bicycle ride and went home, returning on my scooter. Dangling from its tail, I dropped the snake into a plastic bag. Back home, it went straight into the freezer next to the frozen dumplings.
Parts of Asia have traditionally used snake soaked alcohol, sometimes with medicinal herbs, to create infusions for various ailments. The practice is ancient, perhaps not as widespread as it once was, but I thought it a great way to preserve teaching resources.
Taiwan's smaller islands next to China are famous for a potent sorghum liquor called kaoliang. It became my 58 per cent storage liquid of choice and nod to Taiwanese and Asian history. Some of the smaller kaoliang glass bottles are flask-shaped and help display snakes nicely too.
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| pickled snakes in kaoliang |
But slipping a snake into a bottle of alcohol doesn’t necessarily preserve it. The alcohol percentage must be high enough and the snake small enough to let the booze penetrate the creature to keep it from rotting. Also, over time alcohol can change the colour of the snake.
The best method, I’ve found, is to immerse a small snake in formalin for several days. Formalin is an aqueous solution of formaldehyde used as a preservative. A four or five-day soak and then the specimen is rinsed and ready. Formalin helps to ‘fix’ the colours so they don’t change or fade over time. Formalin can be purchased at your local pharmacy in Taiwan once the pharmacist knows what you are up to.
Then the snake is folded into its flask-shaped bottle, head first, where it can stay intact for years. Finally, I tape a simple label to the side.
Preserving a larger snake adds an extra step. Submerging a bigger specimen in formalin and then Kaoliang doesn’t always work. The formalin can’t penetrate the snake to its centre. Decay is a possibility.
So I snap on disposable latex gloves, lay the snake out on a sheet of plastic, and use a syringe to inject formalin into the centre of the thicker snake every few inches along its length. The snake swells but is preserved from the inside out. Then the snake is submerged in formalin for a couple of weeks.
Once the time is up, the bigger snake is rinsed and then coiled like a garden hose into a larger, cylindrical glass bottle of Kaoliang. Once snakes are preserved they are put to work. My collection has grown, and several of the smaller bottles line the edge of my staffroom desk.
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| a big krait in a big bottle of kaoliang |
Taiwanese kids spend much time on schoolwork. Ten hour days are not uncommon. Some students even attend evening and weekend classes in small neighbourhood schools. Outside time is limited. So here is their chance.
Bottled snakes become the topic of a writing class or conversation class. Students ask tons of questions. Some students relate their own snake stories. Kids tell stories of snakes they’ve seen on the road, or while hiking, or snakes they’ve seen on their grandparents' farms.
Other times kids choose one bottled snake to write about. They describe the colour, what snakes eat, what happened to them, if they are venomous or not, and how we can protect snakes.
Hopefully, once those students learn to drive, they will remember the kaoliang-bottled snakes and steer a little more carefully.
