Uneasy Lies the Head That Wears a Crown

The Sahara sand viper (Cerastes vipera), is a small, venomous viper endemic to the deserts of North Africa and the Sinai Peninsula and it has a very special skill. It can hide itself by burying itself in the sand. They do this in order to wait for prey. They wiggle their tails to attract a potential meal and then lunge out from under the sand to chomp them.

Photographer Zac Herr had the brilliant idea of giving a captive-bred Sahara sand viper the opportunity to show off its special skill in a pool full of rainbow sprinkles instead of sand. pacinthesink provided the snek and jdrrising recorded the results:

A post shared by Josh (@jdrrising) on Nov 5, 2017 at 7:19am PST

And Zac Herr photographed the sneaky snek after it was done:

“The best part of this picture is that the snake has no idea how comical it is.“

Prints of these awesome sprinkle viper photos are currently available via Zac Herr’s online shop.

Video by jdrrising, photos by Zac Herr

RIGHT THERE FOR YOU WITH DUST IN THE TITLE

I have been studying this language for over a decade please forgive any mispronunciation im still learning