Notes on Natural History, New Distribution Records and Threats of Indian Egg Eater Snake Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt, 1863 (Serpentes: Colubridae): Implications for Conservation

Parag Hemachandra Dandge, Ashish Dilip Tiple

Abstract


Our observations on Elachistodon westermanni studied at Maharashtra and Telangana, provided some important information about its population, distribution, food and feeding habits, behavior, threats and conservation status. It is first record of E. westermanni from Telangana, adding some locality and road mortality data from Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.

Keywords


Elachistodon westermanni; Egg eater snake; road killed; Conservation; Maharashtra; Telangana; Central India

Full Text:

PDF

References


Blanford W. T. (1875), «Note on (i) Elachistodon westermanni, (ii) Platyceps semifasciatus, and (iii) Ablepharus pusillus and Blepharosteres agilis», J. Asiat. Soc. Bengal, 44(2), 207 – 209.

Captain A., Tillack F., Gumprecht A., and Dandge P. (2005), «First record of Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt, 1863 (Serpentes, Colubridae, Colubrinae) from Maharashtra State, India», Russ. J. Herpetol., 12(2), 121 – 123.

Dandge P. H. (2008), «Food and feeding habits of Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt, 1863», Hamadryad, 32(1), 75 – 77.

Daniel J. C. (2002), The Book of Indian Reptiles and Amphibians, Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc./Oxford Univ. Press, Bombay.

Dowling H. G. (1951), «A proposed standard system of counting ventrals in snakes», Br. J. Herpetol., 1(5), 97 – 99.

Gans C. and Williams E. (1954), «Present knowledge of the snake Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt», Breviora, 36, 1 – 17.

Gartner G. E. A. and Greene H. W. (2008), «Adaptation in the African egg-eating snake: a comparative approach to a classic study in evolutionary functional morphology», J. Zool., 275(4), 1 – 7.

Hijmans R. J., Guarino L., Jarvis A., O’Brien R., Mathur P., Bussink C., Cruz M., Barrantes I., and Rojas E. (2005), Diva-GIS ver. 5.2. Manual. Available at http://www.diva-gis.org/docs. Accessed on 5 May 2015.

Murty T. S. N., Sanyal D. P., and Duttagupta B. (1993), «Rare snakes of India», The Snake, 25, 135 – 140.

Nande R. and Deshmukh R. (2007), «Snakes of Amravati District including Melghat, Maharashtra, with important records of the Indian egg eater, montane trinket snake and Indian smooth snake», Zoos’ Print J., 22(12), 2920 – 2924.

Narayanan A. (2012), «Records of Indian Egg Eater Snake Elachistodon westermanni in the localities of Shegaon, District Buldhana, Maharashtra, India», Reptile Rap, 14, 9 – 12.

Queiroz A. and Rodríguez-Robles J. A. (2006), «Historical contingency and animal diets: the origins of egg eating in snake», Am. Naturalist, 167, 168 – 169.

Reinhardt J. (1863), «Om en ny Slaegt af Slangefamilien Rachiodontidae [On a new genus of snake family Rachiodontidae]», Overs. K. Danske Vidensk. Selsk. Forh., 1(2), 198 – 210.

Rodgers W. A., Panwar H. S., and Mathur V. B. (2002), Wildlife Protected Area Network in India: a Review (Executive summary), Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India.

Rosenberg H. I. and Gans C. (1976), «Lateral jaw muscles of Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt (Reptilia: Serpentes)», Can. J. Zool., 54(4), 510 – 521.

Sharma R. C. (2003), Indian Snakes. Handbook, Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.

Sharma V. (2014), «On the distribution of Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt, 1863 (Serpentes, Colubridae)», Russ. J. Herpetol., 21(3), 161 – 165.

Smith M. A. (1943), The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, including the whole of the Indo-Chinese sub-region. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol. III. Serpentes, Taylor and Francis, London.

Vyas R. (2006), «Story of a snake’s photograph from Gujarat and notes on further distribution of the Indian egg-eater snake», Herpinstance, 3(2), 1 – 4.

Vyas R. (2010), «Distribution of Elachistodon westermanni in Gujarat», Reptile Rap., 10, 7 – 8.

Vyas R. (2013), «Notes and comments on distribution of a snake: Indian Egg Eater (Elachistodon westermanni)», Russ. J. Herpetol., 20(1), 39 – 42.

Wall F. (1913), «A rare snake Elachistodon westermanni from the Jalpaiguri District», J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 22(2), 400 – 401.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.30906/1026-2296-2016-23-1-55-62

Refbacks



You can subscribe to the print or electronic version of the journal on the site of EastView Company. If you have any questions, please write to the email sales@ivis.ru