Trinket snake

Scientific Coelognathus helena

Size:

Adult: 70 cm
When Born: 25 cm
Maximum: 1.5 m

Type: Non Venomous Snake

Appearance: The light brown body with regular black cross bars. It can be identified by the broad dark stripe running along each side of the hind body to the tail tip, two short and dark parallel stripes on the neck, and an oblique stripe running from each eye to the outer edge of the mouth. Sometimes there may be another vertical stripe below the eye.

Nature: It is very famous for its threat display but the snake can be handled with care.

Distribution: Found all over India up to an elevation of about 4000 mts. in the Himalayas.

Habitat: During summers, these snakes inhabit the termite mounds and crevices of rocky places while in winter, they prefer the low lying bushes and trees.

Feeds on: Just like the famous rat snake of America, the trinket is prodigious rodent eating machine. It feeds on rats, lizards and small birds.

Reproduction: The female snake lays around 6 - 8 long slender eggs. The young ones resemble the parents. Once a trinket had laid 8 eggs on February 14 and the young ones hatched out of it on April 11. Another snake had laid eggs in the month of December. They have also been spotted laying eggs during August.

Status: Trinkets are rarely seen. They like agricultural fields as much as they like forest regions. So the transformation of forest regions into agricultural fields did not affect there survival to a greater extent. Even though they are large and beautiful, they are not killed for the sake of their skin as they are very fewer in number and are rarely encountered.

Side Line:

The trinket snake is famous for its threat display that can make even an experienced snake-handler step back in admiration.
Its body gets inflated and flattened to reveal bright white skin under the scales. This bright display increases the apparent size of this small snake and, coupled with spring-like attacking motions of the fore body, is likely to deter most of its common enemies.
It can be seen in the evening or night when hunting.
They are often mistaken for being poisonous, which is not true. Even the famous snake hunting 'Erula' community believes it is a poisonous snake !