Meet the Animals
Freyja
Island pit viper · Trimeresurus insularis
Small, teal and full of fight. Freyja is a male teal Komodo Island pit viper (yes, he's a he!), born in late 2021 and a little over 2 feet long. Gilly calls him “a handful”: he's extremely feisty and always up for a fight.
Hide and wait
Master of the ambush
Island pit vipers do their hunting after dark, perched in the greenery. Rather than chase prey, they hold perfectly still and let dinner come to them.
Red alert
That coral-red tail
Look past the teal and you'll spot it: a rusty-red tail, a trademark shared by every color form of his species, from the common green snakes to rare Komodo blues like Freyja.
Dinner time
Chicks and mice
Freyja eats chicks and mice, and he takes mealtime as seriously as everything else. Like all snakes, he swallows his food whole.
Field notes
About island pit vipers
- Freyja's species is found on eastern Java and across Indonesia's Lesser Sunda Islands.
- Mother island pit vipers give birth to live babies instead of laying eggs.
- Each side of his face has a heat-sensing pit, between the eye and the nostril, that picks up the warmth of nearby prey.
- Most of the species is green. Teal and blue snakes are a rare find, mainly from Komodo Island.
- They are mostly active at night, when they hunt from the branches.
Cared for by
Braxton “Gilly” Gilbert
Freyja is cared for daily by Gilly at Jefe and Friends (Gilly's Exotics LLC). Questions? Email gillysexotics@gmail.com.