Russell's Viper (Daboia russelli) in Sri Lanka

In my last post, I described how Burgess Barnett and Gwyn Macfarlane had found in the 1930s that the venom from Russell's Viper (now Daboia russelli, then called Vipera russelli) was the most effective of all those tested in clotting blood from haemophiliacs. I had never seen a Russell's Viper in the wild until last November when a juvenile decided to cross the road at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka while we were bird (and mammal) watching.

Here it is: