People fear snakes. And writers have manipulated this reaction from ancient times. As tragedy is more interesting than comedy, fear is also more interesting than love. So writers have stitched false information about snakes in their stories to create a fearful atmosphere. One of the classic examples is the ‘Manasamangal’.
It is a classic Bengali story of a businessman and his family who was involved in a conflict with the goddess of snakes, ‘Manasa’. This story tells that Manasa sent a very deadly, very venomous snake, ‘Kalnagini’ to kill the youngest son of that businessman. Now as most of the people don’t read science journals but they have read or heard this story at least once in West Bengal, they regard Kalnagini as a very dangerous snake capable of killing human being with its venom. And I can’t blame them for that. Nobody has ever told them otherwise.
Now what the truth really is?? What is this infamous Kalnagini? Kalnagini or Ornate Flying Snake (Chrysopelea ornata) is a very beautiful and handsome snake. As like every other tree snake, it is also slim and long, average length 1.2m . Overall coloration is greenish yellow or pale green above with black cross bands. Scales also have black borders. Every alternate cross band has reddish or orange patches in vertebral area. The head is black with white and red patches. This is a diurnal and arboreal snake, meaning it is active in daytime and it prefers trees and bushes than grounds. It generally feeds on frogs, lizards, small mammals, birds and even bats. Ornate Flying Snake is not very choosy in its diet and eats whatever it can capture.
And about its deadliness, Ornate Flying Snake has elongated, grooved teeth for delivering the venom. It falls under the category of ‘Rear Fanged Snake’ because its elongated teeth are at the rear of its jaws unlike other venomous snakes which have these at the front. Most importantly, it has very mild venom to subdue its prey but which is totally ineffective against the human. IT CAN NOT KILL A HUMAN. Only side effects like allergic effects, numbness of the bitten area etc can happen.
Being non-venomous or correctly say mildly-venomous does not make it any less interesting. It has a very unique characteristic which only a few other snake poses. It can’t fly but it can glide in air 50m-100m depending upon the height it jumps from. It flattens its body, hollows out ventrally and jumps at an angle with respect to ground. Flattened body helps it to glide through the air and by swinging its tail, it can control the direction of glide. Isn’t that a great achievement for an animal which doesn’t even have hands or legs?
Now come back to the story of Manasamangal again. I would not say the writer didn’t know it is a mildly-venomous snake. Rather he used this snake for this particular feature. No venomous snake would serve his purpose. In the story, after the youngest son got bitten by Kalnagini, his wife took him to heaven and pleased gods by singing and dancing to return his husband’s life. What if she didn’t do it and stayed home? It would have brought the same result. Her husband would not die in either case. You see why I said the writer choose this snake purposefully? Because if any venomous snake had bitten him, even the gods would not be able to save him without the antivenin. And this also the reason why snake charmers can successfully heal people from snake bite sometimes.
It is a classic Bengali story of a businessman and his family who was involved in a conflict with the goddess of snakes, ‘Manasa’. This story tells that Manasa sent a very deadly, very venomous snake, ‘Kalnagini’ to kill the youngest son of that businessman. Now as most of the people don’t read science journals but they have read or heard this story at least once in West Bengal, they regard Kalnagini as a very dangerous snake capable of killing human being with its venom. And I can’t blame them for that. Nobody has ever told them otherwise.
Now what the truth really is?? What is this infamous Kalnagini? Kalnagini or Ornate Flying Snake (Chrysopelea ornata) is a very beautiful and handsome snake. As like every other tree snake, it is also slim and long, average length 1.2m . Overall coloration is greenish yellow or pale green above with black cross bands. Scales also have black borders. Every alternate cross band has reddish or orange patches in vertebral area. The head is black with white and red patches. This is a diurnal and arboreal snake, meaning it is active in daytime and it prefers trees and bushes than grounds. It generally feeds on frogs, lizards, small mammals, birds and even bats. Ornate Flying Snake is not very choosy in its diet and eats whatever it can capture.
And about its deadliness, Ornate Flying Snake has elongated, grooved teeth for delivering the venom. It falls under the category of ‘Rear Fanged Snake’ because its elongated teeth are at the rear of its jaws unlike other venomous snakes which have these at the front. Most importantly, it has very mild venom to subdue its prey but which is totally ineffective against the human. IT CAN NOT KILL A HUMAN. Only side effects like allergic effects, numbness of the bitten area etc can happen.
Being non-venomous or correctly say mildly-venomous does not make it any less interesting. It has a very unique characteristic which only a few other snake poses. It can’t fly but it can glide in air 50m-100m depending upon the height it jumps from. It flattens its body, hollows out ventrally and jumps at an angle with respect to ground. Flattened body helps it to glide through the air and by swinging its tail, it can control the direction of glide. Isn’t that a great achievement for an animal which doesn’t even have hands or legs?
Now come back to the story of Manasamangal again. I would not say the writer didn’t know it is a mildly-venomous snake. Rather he used this snake for this particular feature. No venomous snake would serve his purpose. In the story, after the youngest son got bitten by Kalnagini, his wife took him to heaven and pleased gods by singing and dancing to return his husband’s life. What if she didn’t do it and stayed home? It would have brought the same result. Her husband would not die in either case. You see why I said the writer choose this snake purposefully? Because if any venomous snake had bitten him, even the gods would not be able to save him without the antivenin. And this also the reason why snake charmers can successfully heal people from snake bite sometimes.
Its really a beautiful snake. and its sad that we know very little about snakes..
ReplyDeleteyes we really do know very little about snakes, that is mainly fuelling our fear of snakes.
DeleteIt's a very gorgeous snake with a rather ugly name in Bengali-kalnagini.Who's given it this name?
ReplyDeleteI propose a better name for it,in fact an apt one-'sundari snake' ,which means 'beautiful snake'.It's German name can break your teeth-gelwöhnliche Schmuckbaumnatter.(Can't say I didn't warn you).
yes actually kalnagini should be the name of black krait. it will aptly describe his appearance and potential of his venom. i am not even going to try to pronounce the german name.
Delete