ScatMan;4873458; said:i have to look around, i think it was in one of my encyclopedias. if my memory serves me correctly; the person who first imported them was doing work with them and was killed in his lab.
I suspect you're thinking of the African Twig Snakes or Theloternis spp. Theloternis capensis was the species that killed Robert Mertens.
Excerpt below taken from:
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~insrisg/nature/nw02/0128snakestories.htm
"By 1972 several other deaths and serious bites from Boomslangs and Savanna Twigsnakes (Thelotornis capensis) had been recorded. Following bites from each species, a prevalent symptom was chronic bleeding throughout the body. This precedent did not deter Robert Mertens, an extraordinarily accomplished German herpetologist...from hand-feeding his pet Twig-snake. Bitten, he lingered for three weeks before dying.... Among Robert Mertens's last words were something like 'What a fitting death for a herpetologist.'