{"id":537609,"date":"2026-04-18T10:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/537609\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T10:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T10:34:08","slug":"venomous-snakes-spotted-in-the-new-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/537609\/","title":{"rendered":"Venomous snakes spotted in the New Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  During a survey by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Amphibian and Reptile group, photographer Paul Baker, was able to snap three large adders near Ringwood in the New Forest.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Even more impressive is that one of the adders captured by Paul&#8217;s camera was a melanistic adder.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\" alt=\"A melanistic adder\"\/>A melanistic adder (Image: Paul Baker)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  A melanistic adder has an unusually high amount of dark pigment, making it appear almost entirely black. Adders are the UK&#8217;s only venomous snake.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyecho.co.uk\/news\/26017905.southampton-man-dreams-binman-turned\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Southampton man who dreams of being binman turned down again<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Paul said: &#8220;All the snakes were within feet of each other so it may indicate a nearby hibernaculum. Before today there have only been four Adder records over numerous surveys.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  &#8220;The male melanistic individual was basking about five feet from the normal coloured male.&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The adder is the only native venomous snake in the UK and is found across parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, typically in heathlands, moorlands, woodlands, and coastal areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a survey by Hampshire and Isle of Wight Amphibian and Reptile group, photographer Paul Baker, was able&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-537609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}