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Ilha da Queimada Grande, otherwise known by the nickname Snake Island, which is an island in Brazil.
I first came to know about the existence of this island about a week ago in one of a random videos my mom was showing me on YouTube.
According to Wikipedia, the island serves as the only natural home of the critically endangered, venomous Bothrops insularis (golden lancehead pit viper), which has a diet of birds. The snakes became trapped on the island thousands of years ago following the end of the last ice age when rising ocean levels disconnected the island from the mainland and is closed to the public today in order to protect both people and the snake population whereby the access is available only to the Brazilian Navy and selected researchers.
Albeit my love and fondness towards animals, when it comes to reptiles especially snakes in particular, my fondness diminishes. This fear probably stemmed while I was growing up. Back then, me and my parents used to live in this particular housing area that dates back all the way to probably during the British occupation in Malaysia, which is around the early 1800s.
There are other stories, supernatural in particular, associated with the house and area but I’ll save that for another time. Back to the snakes.
Anyway, that particular housing area was heavily infested with the black king cobra snake (Ophiophagus hannah), I assumed but it was mostly pure black and grows to incredible lengths and is able to stand on its own. Usually, when I spot one, I definitely did not stick around to know if it was able to spit out.
However, this induced a fear within me to always watch my steps around the house or to avoid certain closed spots and to be extra wary of closed off or covered spots and discovering the skin sheddings in the drains or in some spots of the house was a common thing and definitely added to our family’s stress.
Since it was the whole housing area that was infested, probably since it was a really old housing area, there was nothing that the community could do about it. Hence, we endured living in that area for almost 12 years till we had to move out since the area was bought over by an international medical company and the houses were demolished.
I do not know today if that area is still infested. It probably still is since 14 years has passed and the area is now covered with trees, that it looks like a mini forest reserve in the town area near the Woodlands exit into Singapore as the development has still yet to begun.
Thus, I apologise if this may offend some snake lovers who happened to read this article but I am definitely not fond of them and Ilha de Queimada Grande is definitely a place in the world that I NEVER want to visit.
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The Theoretical Doctor 