Ilha de Queimada Grande: The Snake Island Is World’s Deadliest Island

MessageToEagle.com – If you are planning a holiday in Brazil don’t put Ilha de Queimada Grande on your bucket list. As beautiful as Ilha de Queimada Grande might be, this small island, also called the Snake Island is the world’s deadliest island.

Located about 90 miles off the São Paulo coast, this place certainly looks worth paying a visit, but every Brazilian knows setting your foot on the island means death.

The island is infested with between 2,000 and 4,000 golden lancehead vipers, one of the deadliest snakes in the entire world. In fact, Ilha de Queimada Grande is so densely populated by poisonous snakes that the Brazilian Navy has quarantined it.

There is a lighthouse on the island. It is maintained by the Brazilian Navy. Inspections are made once a year, but due to the presence of these dangerous snakes, the lighthouse has been automated since the 1920s.

The island is also an important laboratory for biologists and researchers, who are granted special permission to visit the island in order to study the golden lanceheads. It is certainly a dangerous job. As one biologists stated here “you’re never more than three feet away from death.”

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So how did these poisonous snakes find their way to Ilha de Queimada Grande? According to some sources, snakes were put on the island by pirates hoping to protect their gold. A more down to earth explanation is that the island’s dense population of snakes evolved over thousands of years-without human intervention.

Around 11,000 years ago rising sea levels resulted in that Ilha da Queimada Grande became isolated from the mainland Brazil, causing the species of snakes that lived on the island-thought to most likely be jararaca snakes-to evolve on a different path than their mainland brethren. The snakes reproduced rapidly and now there are thousands of them on the island.
A bite from a golden lancehead carries a 7% chance of death, and even with treatment, victims still have a 3 % percent chance of dying.

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