Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I cought this one in KaoYai national park, central Thailand.

Somebody on the 'what's this snake' suggested a Rhabdophis Tigrinus. However, many details differ from that particular species,and I'd like to have other points of view.

Size: Approx. 75cm
Location: day time, deep rainforest, near to water, burrowing on leaves
Remarks: - not agressive
- does not seem to have fangs at all after checking inside

My own conclusion is that this looks like a keelback (Rhabdophis)
but I could not find any species in this genius that is close enough (see in particular the white spots over the eyes). Moreover,
rhabdophis should be a rear-fanged snake right ? So this may be
kind of a Rahbdophis imitation ?!?
Link

Hard to tell from a photo, but eyeballing it and looking through the books, it looks most like Rhabdophis chrysargos. They can have light spots on the head (althoughs maller and on the parietals in most that I have seen in photos), and they have the dark top of the head ending in a V-shape on the middle of the neck. R. tigrinus does not occur in Thailand, and it it definitely is not R. subminatus, which does.

Rear fangs can be quite difficult to see (depending on how much experience you have), so you may have missed them.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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WW Home

I don't think it's a Rhabdophis. I used to have one that was labled "red headed garter" purchased at a local pet shop (back in the 80's). I did some research on line a few years ago to try to identify it and I came up with Striped Keelback-Amphiesma stolata. Just did a search on google and here's the page that came up.
http://wildthailandphotos.com/stripedkeelback.0159.en.htm

That's the snake! Mine was extremely docile and ate small fish readily. Died after a couple of years from internal parasites- there were no vets in the area that treated reptiles back then and I didn't know enough to treat the snake.

Lora

Ok, here's another site which may help.
http://www.forestry.sarawak.gov.my/forweb/wildlife/fauna/reptile/swsnak.htm

Note the remarks. So Amphiesma sarawacense is also a possiblity.

Lora