An alarmingly sedentary and venomous resident, with excellent camouflage ability. Once coiled in a preferred spot to hunt, it can stay near immobile for days, waiting for prey to come by.
It uses what Wits researchers term ‘lingual luring’: popping out its tongue for up to 30 seconds to lure frogs and toads, which seem to mistake the tongue for an invertebrate. That puff adders don’t do this for small mammals means they can tell the difference between species. Some egrets use lingual luring, but it’s never been recorded in a purely terrestrial animal.