Jararaca

• GeneralThe first blood-pressure drugs were developed from its venom.
• Captopril came from its venom: in the 1960s the Brazilian researcher Sérgio Ferreira identified peptides in it that lowered blood pressure, and that finding gave rise to the first ACE inhibitor and to the whole family of antihypertensive drugs that millions of people take today.
• Juveniles have a pale tail tip that they wriggle like a worm to lure in frogs and lizards, a decoy they lose as they grow and change diet.
• It is responsible for most snakebites in Brazil, not through aggression but through abundance: it lives in crops and on the urban fringes of the south-east, the most populous region of the country.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (reptile)

Habitat and environment

Atlantic Forest, secondary forest, farmland and the fringes of towns in south-eastern South America

Size at birth

20-25 cm at birth; it is viviparous

Sexual maturity

3 years

Gestation / incubation

4 months of gestation

Litter / clutch size

15 live young

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Bothrops jararaca

Best time: From October to March in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, mostly at dusk.

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.