There was something inviting about the eyelash vipers, I thought as a very junior reptile keeper. Yes, they were venomous, and therefore off-limits to me, at least until I cleared training after a probationary period. Their relatively placid manner, coupled with an almost strictly arboreal, largely sedentary lifestyle, meant that, unlike many of the venomous snakes in the collection, I could work around them. Don't get within a body length of them, and you were largely safe.
Of course, their docility and immobility could also lead to complacency. I remember walking into the back of the reptile house one afternoon and seeing a senior keeper sleeping in a swivel chair... right in front of an open eyelash viper cage. He'd been trying to coax the snake into feeding from some forceps, sat down in a comfy chair to do so, and, lulled by the warm surroundings (and tired from working his second job the night before) had drifted off to sleep. The snake, thankfully, was still in its customary perch on its favored branch (I have, in my career, seen a grand total of one eyelash viper that was not wrapped around a branch for reasons of its own choosing).
Maybe because they seem so tranquil, I've always felt more comfortable sitting and watching eyelashes up close than I have other snakes. As part of that, the real treat has been watching them feed. Maybe it's in part because their arboreal lifestyle give you a better vantage point than watching a snake on the ground, but watching an eyelash viper eat is quite an experience. You'd think that the actual strike and envenomation would be the spooky part, but you'd be wrong. The long fangs, normally folded up against the mount, swing out, one by one, seeking purchase on the unfortunate prey (in the photo above, a pre-deceased rodent). Watching the fangs work, it reminds me of two fingers walking across a surface, maybe paging through a book.
You see them, and wonder how they could possibly fit into the mouth with its tight little smile.
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