Encounter with a comedian..

If there is one single snake that I wanted to see in natural habitat badly, that would be ……….I’ll let you guess. Anaconda? King cobra? Gabon viper? (Well, I wanted to see this one too)
No, its not. Believe it or not, it’s Common Vine snake. Seriously, I’m not joking. Because there is a specimen in my own backyard which pretty much everyone of my family have seen except me, ‘cause whenever I look at the picture of it, I say to myself, “man, where did it got those snouts!!” I mean really, it is such a comic looking snake.

Now on this morning, it was a bit cloudy, I went out to a un-habitated place beside our river in a hope to capture some butterflies. I was looking for them every where but as my luck turned towards worse, I didn’t even find a single one. Suddenly a vine caught my attention. The area was thickly vegetated and was full of bushes and vines and creepers and all but this particular one on a low bush was different. Other vines have a shiny surface but this one has a matt surface. But then which vines have a matt finish that is because they have got tiny hair like growths on the surface which this one lacks. Now I got real closer and to my surprise found smooth scales on the surface.

Bingo!! I have found a snake. But what was it?? My heart was beating fast,” boy you have found what you wanted to see for years” but I have to be cautious, ‘cause it could be say a green pit viper for an example. So I followed the trail(the tail) into the bush only to find out a comic looking face welcoming me. Well, in that moment I thought so. It was a beautiful green snake. And it was huge, bigger than any of the vine snakes I have seen in Chennai Snake Park, around 4.5ft long.

As soon as I started to take pictures it was going away. So I had no choice but to grab its tail with one hand to stop it from escaping. But as I grabbed its tail it started a spectacular show. First it dilated its forebody. So, what was a smooth green snake now became a checkered maze of black and white with green. When further threatened, it opened it jaws, retracted its tongue and what I was seeing was a wide open pink mouth. And it also coiled itself in a sigmoid curve to strike at the least provocation. Though it gave me a spectacular opportunity for photography, it was clear that the sign it was displaying was,” KEEP YOUR A** OFF”.

When I released it, whosh! And it was gone. I mean it was so smooth in the action that hardly a leaf had moved. Good bye beautiful friend, see ya later…

Natural History

These snakes are of bright green above and light green below. A thin white line can be found on each side of this snake. It is a common snake of India except the North-East and Northern India. Average size of this snake is about 39 inch but it can reach upto 6ft. It is a diurnal snake meaning it roams about in daylight. Commonly found on low bushes and trees but rarely on ground. I actually saw one crossing a road and I bet if I had uploaded the video to youtube it would have been the funniest video. It is terrible on ground but it is so well adapted to trees that it will get support from the tiniest of twigs. Generally it is a gentle snake but can be quite fierce when captured and does a spectacular threatening display. It generally feeds on small mammals, birds, lizards, fish, frog etc.
It is from the group lacepede meaning rear fanged and is mildly venomous. The symptoms are quite like cobra venom but usually venom has no effect on human. Although secondary symptoms like swelling, numbness of the bitten area could appear.

how to differentiate between common Indian Krait and common Wolf snake

Yesterday when I was out in the evening, suddenly I got a call from home; my mother was yelling “there is a venomous snake in the house, come quick…”. So, I hurried back home only to find out that a common wolf snake was climbing the corner of our door. Everyone believed that it’s a very venomous snake and I should kill it instantly. After talking with them I found out that all they were talking about is of common Indian Krait. It took me a sweating discussion to convince them that it is not a venomous snake; it’s a non-venomous common Wolf snake. Actually people often mistake these two snakes for each other.

COMMON INDIAN KRAIT

COMMON WOLF SNAKE

But is it that much difficult to identify them separately? Absolutely not. One can distinguish a venomous snake from a non-venomous one by opening its mouth and checking the fangs, though its not an easy process. But there is a catch, common Wolf snake’s front teeth of upper and lower jaws are larger which are often mistaken for fangs. So finally the question comes to, ‘how does a lay person identify a non-venomous common Wolf snake from a venomous common Krait snake??

• Firstly, there is a size difference. Adult common Wolf snake can be upto 2.5ft of length but specimens larger than 2 ft are rare. Whereas an adult common Krait snake can be upto 6ft long but the average is 3.5ft. Then the fact arises that a common Wolf snake can be mistaken for a sub-adult common Krait snake. So we come to next difference.


• The white stripes of a common Wolf snake are a bit broader than the common Krait snakes and also the stripes are bordered with somewhat darker scales than the body. Moreover the stripes of common Krait snakes are paired, whereas common Wolf snakes’ stripes are not paired. The most prominent difference from the point of stripes is that common Wolf snakes have got a broad stripe on their neck which is absent in common Krait snakes.
  
  


• Thirdly, the body shape of common Krait snake is somewhat triangular and it is ridged along its vertebral line. In common Wolf snake, the body is roundish and there is no ridge formation.
  
  


• Lastly, the scales of common Krait snake along its vertebral line are hexagonal, means six-sided, and larger which differentiates these from other body scales (in the picture it is actually a banded krait, but this feature is common in all type of kraits.). But we don’t see such phenomena in case of common Wolf snakes. All the scales on its back are of same size and shape. And this one is the most important one.
  
  

So by following these simple points one can easily distinguish between the common Wolf and common Krait and I won’t have to hurried back home for a false alarm. ;-)


To learn about the difference between Russell's Viper and Indian Rock Python.

To learn about the difference between Indian Rat Snake and Cobra.