Book VII · The Unclaimed Entry 55 of 55
Fer-de-Lance — unclaimed
French for “spearhead”. Named for the shape of its head, which is the shape of a weapon.
A large, irritable, superbly camouflaged pit viper responsible for a substantial share of serious snakebites across Central America, with a name that is simply a description of a blade.
- Book
- Book VII — The Unclaimed
- Marque
- Unclaimed
- Model
- Fer-de-Lance
- Years
- Available immediately
- Origin
- Central and South America
- Namesake
- Fer-de-lance / terciopelo
- Binomial
- Bothrops asper
Sigil generated from the entry's own name. Every coil, hue and scale in this plate is a function of the string “vacancy-fer-de-lance”, and of nothing else.
Fer-de-lance: iron of the lance. The head is a broad triangle tapering to the snout, and someone in the French Antilles looked at it and saw a spearhead, and the description stuck.
It is a pit viper — it detects infrared through facial pits, the same apparatus that gave the sidewinder its missile — and it is among the most medically significant snakes in the Americas. Large, common in agricultural land, well camouflaged in leaf litter, and disinclined to move when approached.
In Spanish-speaking Central America it is often the terciopelo: velvet. Two names, one describing a weapon and the other describing a fabric, for the same animal.
As a car name it is almost too good, and probably too French, and certainly too long. But the Ophidiary lists it because a manufacturer with genuine nerve would use it exactly once, on one car, and then never again.
One language called it a spearhead. Another called it velvet. Both were looking at the same animal in the same leaf litter, from different distances.
Questions people actually ask
What does fer-de-lance mean?
It is French for “spearhead” — literally “iron of the lance” — describing the snake’s broad triangular head. In Spanish-speaking Central America the same animal is often called terciopelo, meaning velvet.
Provenance of claims
This is a satire with a research habit. Every load-bearing statement above is listed here and labelled, so you can tell which sentences would survive a librarian.
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Documented
Fer-de-lance means “iron of the lance” in French, describing the snake’s triangular head.
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Documented
Bothrops asper is a pit viper with infrared-sensing facial pits and is medically significant across Central America.