Wildlife biologists find first record of arrow-headed trinket snake in Melghat

Nagpur: A recent extensive survey on reptiles and amphibians in Central India by a team of wildlife biologists has recorded arrow-headed trinket snake in Melghat for the first time.
Biologists Khan Ashaharraza and Ankit Bibekar discovered the species of snake from densely covered moist deciduous forests in the periphery of Gawilgarh fort in Chikhaldara.
Scientifically called Coelognathus Helena Nigriangularis, the trinket snake is non-venomous and belongs to rat snake family. “This is the first record from Melghat and second from Maharashtra,” said Ashaharraza from Indian Herpetological Society (HIS).
Ashaharraza said the snake was recorded from Tadoba in 2013 but Melghat’s is the first specimen and scientific record. Earlier, the species has been recorded in Pachmarhi in MP (2011) and Kangarghati in Bastar plateau (2016) in Chhattisgarh.
Ashaharraza added that this secretive species in Melghat shows pristine uniqueness of the forests and called for awareness among indigenous people for better conservation policies.
Melghat Tiger Reserve (MTR) is an important and pristine ecosystem not for only keystone species like tigers but also for numerous lower vertebrates in central highlands of India. Chikhaldara is the only place in Vidarbha which covers a wet zone characterized by moist deciduous forests in the otherwise dry deciduous landscape of the Satpura Hills.
The species was identified after personal communication with Dr Pratyush Mohapatra, scientist with Zoological Survey of India (ZSI), and Klaus Deter Schluz from Germany, who is a known authority on rat snakes.
Bibekar said, “As there was no vernacular name for species, we named it ‘Shar Shirshi Taskar’ which means arrow-headed trinket snake. There is a black arrow-shaped mark on the head of this snake which us a key character for visual identification of this species.”
The present discovery is published by Kansas University, USA, in a reptiles and amphibians journal in their August issue. The biologists acknowledged scientists Dr Cuckoo Mahapatra, Dr Rabindrakumar Mishra and Dr Srushtidhar Rout from North Orissa University and wildlife lovers Yadav Tarte, Sawan Deshmukh, Viraj Jaulkar, Virag Jaulkar, Abhijeet Dani and Dhiraj Shinde for their assistance in field surveys.