Deep within the mist-cloaked foothills that straddle eastern Guatemala and western Honduras, a slender emerald serpent slips through the canopy. The jade palm pit viper (Bothriechis thalassinus) is a rare, arboreal, venomous reptile whose luminous green scales are laced with turquoise highlights. Its habitat – the cloud forest – is a biodiversity hotspot increasingly choked by expanding coffee plantations, which have already erased more than a quarter of Honduras’ humid forest since the early 2000s.
When photographer Jack Devlin ’22 returned from a field assignment in Honduras with a stack of vivid images, a major nature magazine chose his work for a full-spread, thrusting the obscure snake into the global spotlight. Yet the photographs are only the visible tip of a story that began in a Yale classroom, where a shared love of amphibians and reptiles sparked a partnership that would soon shape an entire conservation movement.
The campus connection that sparked a conservation crusade
Devlin and his future collaborator, Tasman Ezra ’22, first crossed paths in the senior-year course “Plant Diversity and Systematics,” taught by Erika Edwards. A field trip to Horse Island – a research outpost managed by the Yale Peabody Museum – revealed a mutual fascination with photographing cold-blooded animals. Their curiosity deepened during a spring excursion to Acadia National Park, where Ezra, working under Martha Muñoz, pursued a thesis on spotted salamanders that breed in coastal tide pools. Muñoz recalled how Ezra independently secured permits, funding, and experimental design, demonstrating the drive that would later define his conservation work.
Back at Yale, Devlin captured footage for a documentary-making class, while Ezra taught him the subtle art of lighting and angle that turns a reptile into a work of visual poetry. “It’s all about the angles and how you diffuse the light,” Ezra explains, a lesson that later illuminated the viper’s iridescent skin for millions of readers.
From field trips to a nonprofit: the birth of HonduHerp
Ezra’s childhood in southern Florida, spent between a zookeeper father’s snake rooms and backyard tortoises, predisposed him to reptiles. After graduation, a casual invitation from high-school friend C.J. Baker to explore western Honduras for snakes evolved into a series of meetings with Honduran officials tasked with safeguarding the nation’s natural assets. Their discussions led to an official amphibian-and-reptile monitoring expedition, which in turn opened doors to the misty cloud forests that host the jade palm pit viper.
While trekking the forests, Ezra witnessed coffee farms bulldozing swaths of verdant land. A 30-hectare plot slated for clear-cutting caught his attention in 2023, when local birdwatcher-turned-conservationist Alexander Alvarado warned of the imminent loss. Mobilizing regional partners, Ezra and Baker raised funds, purchased the site, and founded HonduHerp to manage the newly protected acreage.
Since its inception, HonduHerp has expanded to co-manage nine reserves covering more than 5,000 acres. The organization blends on-the-ground protection with scientific research, cataloguing the distributions of rare amphibians, reptiles, and possibly undiscovered frog species. Ezra emphasizes that the group’s primary mission is preservation; science and education serve that goal.
Community, camera, and conservation in action
When Devlin learned of the newly established preserve, he proposed a visual documentation mission. Over two three-week trips, he trekked nocturnal forest trails with Ezra, local shop owners, and community volunteers, using headlamps to locate the arboreal vipers. Ezra’s knack for finding the snakes – “second nature” to him – paired with Devlin’s lens, yielded close-ups that resemble abstract paintings of jade and turquoise.
The local residents, initially wary of a venomous snake, rallied around the protection effort, an unusual show of solidarity. “You don’t often see people rally behind a venomous snake,” Devlin notes, highlighting the powerful narrative that emerged when the community recognized the viper as a symbol of their forest’s health.
Devlin’s portfolio eventually reached the editors of a renowned nature magazine, leading to a summer spread that placed the jade palm pit viper alongside sweeping forest vistas. The article marked Devlin’s first major publication and underscored how visual storytelling can amplify conservation messages.
Beyond Honduras: a continuing legacy of visual advocacy
Today, Devlin serves as a Fulbright Scholar with Greenhood Nepal, documenting efforts to safeguard lesser-known species such as pangolins and high-altitude orchids. His recent work illustrated a story about an orphaned elephant in Nigeria for the same magazine’s online platform, reinforcing his belief that “connections forged in university can blossom into global opportunities.”
Ezra, now a doctoral candidate at Washington University studying macroevolutionary ecology, credits Yale mentors – particularly Muñoz and emeritus professor Jacques Gauthier – for giving him the confidence to lead a cross-border conservation initiative. “Jacques was the first person to call me a scientist,” he reflects, underscoring how academic encouragement can translate into real-world impact.
Together, Devlin’s imagery and Ezra’s on-the-ground protection illustrate a model where academic curiosity, artistic skill, and community partnership converge to rescue a dazzling yet vulnerable species from the edge of extinction.
