Recently we heard about some very exciting news in our Eat and Be Eaten gallery on the third floor: our Gaboon viper shed her fangs!

To learn more, we decided to go straight to the sssssource and interview her directly. Unfortunately, we found out that snakes aren’t very good at speaking English, but luckily one of our Animal Interpretation Associates was able to, well, interpret for us! Here’s the translated interview:

Q: Can you introduce yourself for our guests who haven’t met you before?

A: I’m a Gaboon viper, the resident viper here in Liberty Sssscience Center. For those of you who don’t know, a viper is a venomous snake and I am the largest viper species in the world. I can grow to over 7 feet long!

Q: I’ve heard of venom before, but how exactly do you use it?

A: I like my prey to come to me, so I stay very sssstill and use my camouflage to make sure small mammals and birds don’t notice me. I also like to flatten my body so my beautiful patterning blends in with the leaf litter. Once I grab my food, my venom does most of the work. It contains neurotoxins and hemotoxins, which destroy nerves, blood cells, and blood vessels, causing my prey to bleed a lot. I have the highest venom yield of any other snake, up to 600mg of venom per bite! And my fangs, which I use to inject my venom, are the longest of any snake at 2-inches.

Q: So the reason we are here today is that we heard you shed your fangs.

A: Yessss I did! I will shed them every so often and then grow new ones. I shed my skin too. My skin sheds about once every six weeks, but my fangs not as often.

Q: Of course we know you don’t have to worry about predators here at Liberty Science Center, but if you lived in the wild, what would dare try to eat you?

A: Nobody! I’m the one that other animals have to worry about.

Q: Well I have to ask…what about humans?

A: Keep your cool, I’m not aggresssssive to humans. I know you’re too big for me to eat, so I would only bite a human if one tried to hurt me. Besides, I’d rather teach you all about snakes like me, so maybe you could help my friends in the wild.

Q: OK! How can we help?

A: My sssspecies lives in the rainforest in sub-Saharan Africa, and, as you may know, there is a lot of deforestation. I think I’ve heard some of the smaller humans here say they “reduce, reuse and recycle,” and that’s a great way to save resources and habitat! I’d also like to point out that you shouldn’t say snakes are “gross” or “mean” – we’re not!

Q: It’s certainly been a pleasure chatting with you! Thank you for answering all our questions!

A: Thank you! I’ve been told us venomous snakes have a lot of poison-ality! Tell your other humans to be sure to slither on over to visit me sometime!

This exclusive interview was conducted by LSC’s Senior Animal Interpretation Associate Chelsey Hack.