CHENNAI:
Conservationists
in the state are excited. A
comprehensive study
of the
shield-tailed snake
, an
unusual reptile
that delivers young ones unlike most snakes which lay eggs, has been completed after a long gap of 31 years.
The study of the snake, found in the eastern and western ghats regions, was published in December 2016.
S R Ganesh, a member of the team of researchers that published the study, told TOI that the first time a study was done on the snake was in 1886 when British forest officer Richard Henry Beddome spent considerable time learning about its life and habitat. The next study was done 100 years later, in 1985, by M V Rajendran of Tirunelveli.
The slow-moving non-venomous snake, a nocturnal creature, is covered with a dull colour on top, helping it blend with its surroundings almost completely until an ususpecting prey comeswithin striking distance, and a colourful belly. The rough-ended blunt tail is what helps researchers identify the species.
Once found in plenty in regions at an elevation of 1,300 metres above sea level, the snakes faced a threat due to the felling of trees with large canopies. The lack of such trees led to an increase in soil temperature that the snake could not cope with. Excessive use of chemical fertilizers that changed the soil quality was another big threat, particularly in cardamom and coffee plantations where they were found in good numbers, said Ganesh.
Active during the monsoon, these snakes are generally found living in burrows under the soil. Its slow movement is a bane, with many of the species coming under speeding vehicles on ghat roads.
A few regulatory measures helped increase their numbers, but there has so far been no study on the life span of these snakes, Ganesh said.
The highest numbers of the species are in the Western Ghats, in an around the Aanamalai hills of Pollachi and in the Agasthiyar hill ranges of the Kalakkad Mundanthurai tiger reserve in Tirunelveli. They are also found in the hills of the Nilgiris, he said.
In comparison, the diversity of the species in the Eastern Ghats is low. However, recent studies have revealed an increase in numbers in the discontinuous range of mountains that run from northern Odisha to
Tamil Nadu through Andhra Pradesh. Last year, a group of researchers from Mumbai found a new strain of the species which was named Khaire's shieldtail snake, Ganesh added.
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