Rare snake species found in the vicinity of Nehru Zoological Park

Hyderabad, August 2 (Maxim News): Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad, Reptile House animal keepers Mr. A. Prabhakar, Mr. M. Subhash and Mr. A. Sachin rescued a rare snake in the environs of Tadbun Masjid-e-Abubaker Siddiq area which is located in the periphery of the Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad.

It is identified as a Yellow Collared Wolf Snake (Lycodon flavicollis) by the zoo veterinary section.

The snake is about 46 Cm long (Total body length). Presence of thick yellow collar which extended to lower of head, also dorsal colour chocolate brown degenerated bands on mid body were noted. This species was described by Mukherjee & Bhupathy in the year of 2007 from the type locality Mangarai village located on the periphery of the Anaikatti Reserve Forest, Western Ghats, Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu State, south-western India. It was also recorded from the Tirupati Hills, Andhra Pradesh of the Eastern Ghats (Gupta et al. 2014), and a few additional photographic records of this species exist from Magadi, Tumkur, and Hospete on the Deccan Plateau of Karnataka state. A very little known on the taxonomy about its distribution and natural history. Only one locality has been recorded from Sangenenipalli Thanda in Vepanagandla mandal of Wanaparthy District in Telangana State

Ms. Shivani Dogra, Curator, Nehru Zoological Park, Hyderabad, said that the after keen examination of the species, it is released safely in the zoo campus. The current record adds the additional locality record to Telangana State and it will give an idea about species distribution range in southern India. In the vicinity of Zoo Park several snake species have been rescued and released safely in the wild. Diversity of the snake’s species consists of Indian Cobra, Common Krait, Russell’s viper, Indian Rat snake, Common Wolf snake, Common bronze back tree snake, Common Trinket snake and Green Vine snake. (Maxim News)