AsiaLIFE - The Wild Side of Ho Chi Minh City

Wildlife Spotter

Wildlife artist Dao Van Hoang was born in Saigon in 1964. He grew up in later era of Saigon than Hoa, but he remembers a lot of wildlife that's now disappeared from the city.

"I used to net lots of colourful butterflies around Tan Dinh district where we lived, in the 70s," Hoang said. "I guess I contributed to their extinction in the city. We don't find so many now."

Hoang, who returned to Ho Chi Minh City in 1996, 17 years after fleeing on a boat, always keeps an eye out for wildlife in the city. 

"You don't see the huge tokay geckos in the city anymore," he said. "I think they've all ended up in rice wine. But you do see little geckos everywhere. There are probably many different species, including the ones who camouflage themselves on the dark bark of Hopea odorata trees."

Like most Ho Chi Minh City residents, Hoang regularly sees squirrels, bats, birds and lizards in the city. His keen eyes have also spotted some rare insects, including a pair of Atlas moths, as well as frogs, skinks and calotes, a genus of the lizard family. He was thrilled to find some flying tree snakes and some Asian grass lizards near his apartment in Thao Dien in District 2. 

The venom of flying tree snakes are only a danger to small prey. But local news outlets regularly report cases of the venomous white-lipped pit viper (trimeresurus albolabris, known as the red-tailed viper in Vietnamese) in Ho Chi Minh City.