Thursday, June 17, 2010

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.

25 comments:

  1. Hey, thanks a lot for this info. very required. We caught one yesterday, but still not able to figure out which one it was between these two because it was a baby...like 60 cms or so...the white stripes forked into Y shape towards the bottom...I'll go home and compare your data with pictures so I can better identify.

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    1. Very helpful..
      Thanks for sharing..

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    2. Great share .These kind of knowledge worth a million .

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  2. Thats a simple but very clear distinction you have made us to understand. Thanks a lot! (will avoid unnecessary panic!!)

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  3. hey....We have a snake living in the stone walls of our verandah.....I'm a lil' hesitant bout catchin' the bugger....wasn't quite sure if it was a krait....but now that I know....I've identified it as a Com. wlf snake....thanks a million!!! I guess I can let it stay!!
    Crescentia Aubert,Mount Abu, Rajasthan.

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    1. great! wolf snakes does not do any harm. comes out at night and goes in search of geckos.

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  4. Thanks for the information. it helped me a lot.

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  5. Thank You for all the Good information.

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  6. thank you. this is really helpful as both the snakes are the same to a layman.

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  7. useful information. I just caught one last night and identified it as common krait just by its paired white stripes.

    v.siva kumar, hyderabad.

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  8. thankyou very much..............

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  9. Excellent information. All our concerns over the numerous 'kraits' that we have come across over seven years have vanished. They have all been wolf snakes!
    Varanasi

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    1. great. but never handle a snake unless you are very sure. even a slight confusion over the identity of a krait can have fatal consequences.

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  10. Good comparison with clear photographs. The description is nicely written. The information will help all. Thanks a lot.

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  11. yesterday i killed one wolf snake b'coz of mistaken identity of common krait, so this healped me a lot for identification.

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  12. Superb explanation thank you for this post.

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  13. Thanks a lot for very important informations which will help to save lives of harmless common wolf snakes around.
    In addition to these, I have noticed deferences of the neck area of these two, to say the wolf skake has a rather thin neck comparing to it's head and body but with common craite, the neck is not clearly visible.
    Am I correct here,if not please explain.

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  14. Thanks.i could have made a big mistake .i saw a krait and thought it was a wolf snake

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  15. Very clearly explained. We get to see two or three such fellas in our compound and i was at loss to identify them. Thanks a ton for your clear pics too. Is it true that wolf snake can actually give a nasty bite?

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  16. What Defference between common Krait and sind krait how to identify them.....they look both similar

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  17. What a information πŸ‘ŒπŸ‘ŒπŸ‘Œ
    Keep it up πŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘

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  18. Thanks, very helpful. Also the images are very clear to understand.

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  19. Thanks man I had confused both snake
    You have describe very well

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