Roatan vine snake
Oxybelis wilsoni
Where to see it
Trees and shrubs, where it spends its whole life. Hard to spot: it looks like a vine until it moves.
When
All year
Status
Endangered. Found nowhere else on Earth.
A very slender snake that spends its whole life in trees and shrubs, so thin and so well matched to a twig that most people walk straight past it. It was described in 1995 and named after the herpetologist Larry David Wilson, who spent decades documenting the reptiles of Honduras.
It is listed as Endangered, mostly because the forest it needs keeps shrinking as the island builds out. It is not considered dangerous to people. If you see a green-to-brown thread of a snake draped through a bush with its head held still, that is probably it; leave it where it is and count yourself lucky.