A Hidden Treasure of Rare Snake Specimens

[Zorro]

In the foothills of the Ecuadorean Amazon, a 101-year-old farmer and a young scientist turned an amateur collection into a scientific survey of one of the most diverse snake habitats on Earth.

A decade ago, Alex Bentley, a young American scientist, traveled to the small Ecuadorean town of Mera to study an elusive species of snake known as the “X.” During his visit, a local park ranger mentioned an old man who had an extraordinary collection of snakes.

Arriving at a shack on the old man’s property, Bentley was greeted by a sign announcing admission prices of $1 for adults and 50 cents for children. Anthurium flowers and tropical evergreen plants lined the outside. He paid the dollar and stepped into a dusty small building with white lattice walls and a corrugated metal roof.

Inside, dozens of dead snakes, coiled in plastic bottles and glass jars, lined wooden shelves. The specimens, rare and obscure, drifted in a cane liquor that had clouded over the decades.

They were like a “little hidden treasure,” Bentley recalled, “something that had just been overlooked.” The jars held massive snakes and species even Bentley couldn’t name, in a menagerie that stretched back 70 years.

What captivated him even more was the collector: Manuel Genaro Peñafiel, a slight, mustachioed farmer who lived in the white house next door and had transformed the shack into a makeshift museum.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/29/science/snake-collector-mera-ecuador.html

The "X" (Equis) snake is more commonly known as a fer-de-lance. They are not to be trifled with.