Taiwan is a great place to view many different species of snakes.

The News Lens
Date: 2017/07/30
By: By Steven Crook, Taiwan Business TOPICS Magazine

When the temperature rises and rain falls, the life forms that inhabit Taiwan’s forests

REUTERS/Tony Gentile

become more active. Some expatriates might loathe Taiwan’s sultry summers, but for snake aficionados Bill Murphy, Hans Breuer, and Dane Harris, the season has definite advantages. All three spent many years in Taiwan before they began to appreciate the size and diversity of the island’s serpentine population.

“I’ve been interested in wildlife my whole life, ever since my grandmother used to explain the flora and fauna during hikes,” says Wisconsin-born Bill Murphy. “For the first decade I was in Taiwan, I’d occasionally see a snake, but I wasn’t particularly interested in them to the exclusion of other wildlife. Taiwan is an area of unusually fecund biodiversity. In the hills, I’ve come across flying squirrels, ferret badgers, pangolins, giant moths, glass lizards, rhinoceros beetles, barking deer, and Swinhoe’s pheasants.”    [FULL  STORY]