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- I feel like we're Seal Team six. - It does feel like Seal Team six right now. - We're infiltrating the island. - We're the Viper squad. (dramatic music) Wow, look at it, it's so bright in coloration. And it's been about an hour and a half since we've seen a snake, so. Maybe this patch here will be the lucky spot. - I'm not gonna call it. I'm just gonna keep looking for this blue viper. - We are exhausted.
The bulldozer, coming through. (yelps) I just got stabbed. Okay, tonight we're going on a rather epic adventure. We're headed off of the boat and toward the island of Padar. Padar is one of the 17,500 or so islands in the Indonesian island chain. And this is the only island where you can find a very unique pit viper species that we're gonna be looking for tonight. So we've got one shot at this, let's make it happen. Bro, you kidding me? I forgot my flashlight. - You need it? - [Coyote] Yeah. - Whoa, whoa, whoa, what did you say? - Just, I forgot my flashlight.
- [Mario] You forgot your flashlight? You've got to be ready for combat. - I, I think I left it on my bed. Maybe it's in this pocket? No. - [Mario] Okay. - Don't have my flashlight. - For everyone witnessing. I'm going to give him this flashlight to use tonight. He's gonna give it back to me at the end of the night. - That's true, yeah, thank you Mario. Ooh, cool, look at the spooky dock.
Tom Cruise could do it. Thanks Ajis. Nothing like getting dropped off in the middle of nowhere. There goes the boat. Bye. - [Mario] Stars are pretty crazy out here. Even with all the lights of all the boats. If you just dim your light, you can see everything. Very clearly, way more than you would in the city. - [Coyote] Now, Argis also said there is a chance we could see a sleeping Komodo dragon on this island.
These dragons do not live on the island frequently, but they will occasionally stop over to sleep. So we will keep our eyes peeled. Oh, there's a rodent. There goes a mouse, look at him. There's a rat right there. Alright, we've already seen some prey items. (suspenseful music) Ooh, at these turds. Goat. Been some goats out here, I see the tracks. The environment that we're walking around in right now, honestly seems like the last place where you'd find a super rare snake.
It's really just a bunch of dried up grasses and dead plants. (suspenseful music) - [Mario] Oh, snake. See one? - Oh yeah, yeah, we got one right here, green one. Oh no, this is not, this is not what we're looking for. Max! - [Max] yes? - Just wanna make sure that this is. - [Max] It's moving. (suspenseful music) - [Ajis] That's bronzeback. - Oh, I lost him. I missed him. We saw our first snake, but we didn't catch it.
It's because I needed to ask Max first. You have to know for sure that something's non venomous before you grab it. There are a lot of very unassuming looking snakes in this environment. And you grab something that's venomous unknowingly, it could be a really bad play. Okay, we might have a sleeping Komodo dragon. Oh yeah, this seems safe. Going into the underbrush. (suspenseful music) Oh yeah, we did it, we did it. We got a sleeping Komodo dragon. That might be one of the biggest Komodo dragons we've seen.
He's an absolute giant. It's interesting how they don't quite go all the way back into a hole. You've just got an overhang with roots and his head is tucked down. It's like when the sun's starting to come out and you put your head underneath your pillow and you try to keep sleeping. Then again, there's not necessarily anything other than us that's gonna come up and try to mess with the sleepy dragon. Maybe I can sneak up under there and get a photo. He's kind of moving, better make this quick. Definitely not gonna touch him.
(suspenseful music) (camera clicking) All right, well, too many shadows with all the roots for the flashlights. But pretty cool being this close to a komodo dragon when it's sleeping. This is not one we want to disturb though, so we're gonna keep moving. We have got a baby tokay gecko. I'm gonna try to catch this. Good spotting, holy cow. It's right here. (suspenseful music)
Got him. Okay. Ow, classic tokay gecko, biting my finger. Oh my goodness. This is the cutest little tiny gecko I have ever seen. My favorite gecko species in the world. The tokay gecko. Now they get big and they bite hard, especially when they're a lot bigger. So you notice, that gecko was pointed downward on that branch. Any little bug that comes up the edge is gonna be fair game. But when these geckos get bigger, they'll actually eat other gecko species, other lizards, even birds and small mammals.
What an absolutely adorable little guy. I can't believe it. A tiny, tiny tokay gecko. All right, we're gonna put you right back on the tree that we found you on bud, okay. Never expect to see one of these. All right, buddy, back up on this little branch. I get picture of him like that. Now, one of my goals on this trip when we're in Bali is to actually find a much larger tokay gecko. While I've been bitten by them before, I want to get bitten by one in its native range. All the tokay gecos that I've ever caught have been invasive species in Florida. So I've seen a tiny one, now we gotta find a big one.
Okay, this is my chance for redemption. We found another one of those racers that I missed earlier. Let's go for it. (suspenseful music) There you have it. That is a bronze back, I misspoke. It's not a racer, I thought it was this type of racer. They actually look a lot like a tree snake mixed with a garter snake. Fortunately no biting, that's a good sign. What a cool snake though. You can see how powerful and rubber like that body is.
Look, they're just like a vine snake, able to really hold their bodies out. Not the snake species we're looking for, but any animal that we can pack into this adventure is a good sign. You gonna bite me? No, okay, cool. We're gonna put you right back on the tree and search for those vipers. (upbeat music) Bye. (upbeat music) Okay. Gonna duck under this, watch your eyes. Dang! Bulldozer coming through. (yelps), I just got stabbed.
You gotta be kidding me. Where are we? - [Max] Ular, green ular. - Oh, Max got a green one! Alright, copy, we're coming your way. Leave it to Max. Found our first snake. - [Max] See him on the ground? - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. (suspenseful music) Wow, look at it, it's so bright in coloration. Oh, he starting to move. (suspenseful music)
All right, there we go. Bite proof gloves working real good right now. Okay. My goal here is to get it to just chill on the stick. Let's see if we can make some magic here. Perfect. Oh, there it is. The green phase of the island Viper. So much more vibrant than I imagined it was going to be. And this is exactly what we would've expected to see. Is it just hanging on a branch like this in ambush pose. But as we walked up, max said it was probably coming off the ground, getting ready to position itself.
Now I was able to pick it up with the bite proof gloves because their fangs are way too small to be able to penetrate these gloves. But putting it on the stick just helps keep it a little bit more calm. That way I don't have to actually squeeze down on it with my fingers. All right, getting rid of this glove. What a beautiful snake. It almost doesn't look real. It looks like a rubber kids toy. And when we're talking about the three different color phases, green is the most common. So we pretty much expected to see a green one. Finding blue will be a little bit more difficult, although we put in some effort so far. And the yellow, of course, is the toughest.
Now, like all pit vipers, they have heat sensing pits right on the front of their face. This is exactly how that snake would be hunting, just waiting, lying in ambush, for anything to get close. Now a snake of this size is not gonna eat something as big as a rat, but it would be eating the baby rats that are on the island and definitely taking advantage of geckos. So these snakes are found on a number of the different Indonesian islands. But this is a very unique place because you can find all three color phases. And based on the size, Max was telling me that this is likely a male.
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(dramatic music) Now, there's no record of anybody having died from being bitten by one of these snakes. And if I were to accidentally be bitten, it's unlikely I'd need anti-venom. There'd just be a lot of swelling and uncomfortableness for a few days. But that's not a risk that I want to take. Cause you never know how your body's gonna react to any venom. I'm just gonna go ahead and touch it with my finger. Wow, it's very-- Wow! Careful buddy. Look at him holding onto that branch with his tail like that, that's awesome.
I guess that's probably a good point for us to put him back off into the wild. But there he have it. We got the green phase. Now we gotta find the blue and the yellow. (dramatic music) Check that out, Max is finally getting to use his really nifty herping tool. It has the ability to use a black light to fluoresce critters. And we just found this little bark scorpion. A little angry at the moment, otherwise I'd let go of his telson, he'll probably sting me.
Let's just see what happens. (suspenseful music) Cool. (dramatic music) (Coyote circus hums) This is not an easy environment to navigate. So we've spread out in multiple directions. Everybody's searching for yellow and blue snakes. Hey, you'd think a bright blue snake would just stand out like a sore thumb.
- [Cameraman] Alright, tell me about this blue viper, Mario. - Simple, it's a viper and it's blue. The more that we are not finding it, the more I want to find it. Cause we're hyping it up so much. We tend to do that, right? When we're searching for a species, we hype it up so much that it becomes like an obsession. And we try hard to find one. But then there's a point where we give up. It's nine o'clock, so who's gonna give up first? Is it gonna be Trent? Is Trent gonna say, hey dude, I'm, you know, I'm kind of hungry.
We gotta go back, get some Mackers. Only that's not gonna happen this time. Or is it gonna be Coyote, who's gonna say, dude, I'm whooped guys, let's, let's just call it. I'm not gonna call it. I'm just gonna keep looking for this blue viper. - [Cameraman] Well, the important thing to remember is we gotta film Komodos at seven in the morning. - 7:00 AM? - I got a good swatch of trees right in front of me here. Check this out. And it's been about an hour and a half since we've seen a snake. So maybe this patch here will be the lucky spot.
We are exhausted. But you don't ever give up. You don't give up until you're in your bed. Gotta keep pushing, there's gotta be. This is sometimes how much work it takes. It's a lot more difficult to find animals than you would think. And we know that this is an area where these snakes have been spotted before, which is exactly why we're in this spot, but they are not making it easy. Okay, so as of now, I think we're gonna call it a night. We have been searching for hours and we have not been able to find a blue or a yellow viper.
Six green ones. (team hollering) Oh, really? Blue one! Just like that, I was literally just wrapping it up! Let's go! Oh my gosh. Yes, there's one, this is amazing! Yes! Holy cow! It's up higher too. 11th hour, this is the one. - We were just standing here. We're like, okay, so we're gonna change it up. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do this. And if we do this, and then he just looks up, he's like, oh my god, blue.
(group laughing) - That's epic. Sometimes that's just how things work out. (upbeat music) That's why we wear bite proof gloves. Some times you have to just. If he got higher up in the tree and we lost him, that would be the end of the night. My goodness, look at that snake. Alright, I'm gonna get it out onto the snake hook here. So we can have a really good look at it.
Wow, look how beautiful that snake is, oh my goodness. Have you ever seen something so elegant looking? Beautiful teal bluish coloration. And that is the quintessential famous color phase that people have been sending us photos of for years, saying, Coyote, you have to get to the Indonesian islands so that you can film with this island viper. Likely also a male given the size that it is about the same size as the green one that we found earlier. Yeah, buddy, I know you were just up there in ambush hunting a little higher than your green buddies were, weren't you? Let me do this.
See if I just gotta balance them on the glove there. So you can really see a difference between the blue phase and the green phase. A stark difference, same exact snake species, different color morph. That is truly a gorgeous animal and it has taken us hours tonight searching up and down through this arid environment. Incredibly difficult to walk through, all of these gripping underbrush shrubs. I mean just beating the heck out of us. And I sat up there on the hillside, I was exhausted.
My arm is super swollen from the hornet sting. You see how huge my arm is at the moment. I'm tired, I'm in a lot of pain. But I said, you can't give up until you literally get into your bed. And lo and behold, we were ready to call it and the universe gave us this moment. Gave us the most beautiful snake that you can find in Indonesia, the blue phase island Viper. And there it is. Wow. Well, same exact facts that I would've given you with the green one, ambush predator, toxic venom, but not so toxic that it would send you to the hospital unless you had an allergic reaction. And I think the best thing to just do right now is be
thankful for finding it and just get the chance to admire how incredibly beautiful it is. It's not oftentimes in nature that you see things that are blue. Blue stands out, and oftentimes blue animals are easily preyed upon. But for some reason the snakes on this island are thriving. No real predators on this island, surprisingly other than hogs that would kill these snakes. No feral cats, no wild cats. But these snakes are feeding on geckos, skinks, and baby rodents. And this snake up in the tree like that
is probably taking more of an opportunity to get geckos than it is anything else. Look at you, just behaving so incredibly well. Now the snake has not struck a single time, even when I picked it up out of the tree using the bite proof gloves. And that's just proof that even as a venomous snake, it's not something that you necessarily ever need to be afraid of. Not something you wanna go outta your way to just pick up. You always wanna admire venomous snakes from a safe distance, but so thankful to find you buddy.
We worked long and hard and even Ajis, who's an expert at finding these vipers, walked a considerable distance. Of course, it was just at that perfect ending moment where we came across the Blue Viper. (dramatic music) I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave, stay wild. We'll see you on the next adventure. Alright, let's get an epic thumbnail and head back to the boat. - A little bit (dramatic music) If he completely goes around. - Well, we are on our walk back to the boat and it is a walk of victory.
We finally found the blue Viper. It is so much later than I think we anticipated being out, but when you get the snake you're after or whatever the animal is that you're after, boy does it feel like a good win. Tomorrow, we wake up and we head to Komodo Island to see Komodos proper on the island where they get their namesake. Okay, I am less than just a couple feet away from a full grown Komodo dragon. This thing is absolutely epic from the tip of its snout to the tip of its tail. This is the largest lizard on the planet.
The biggest of the monitors. And it has taken 10 years to get to this point. Right now, the dragon is looking right at me, huge, massive front claws. And the thing that's different about Komodo dragons as compared to other monitor lizards is the robustness of their bodies. - All of that muscular structure, not only in the forearms, but in the hind limbs and that tail. (animals calling) (dramatic music)
