Beddome's Black Earth Snake
Melanophidium punctatum
Melanophidium punctatum, commonly known as Beddome's black shield-tail snake or Beddome's black earth snake, is a species of shield-tail snake endemic to the Western Ghats of India.
From the article Melanophidium punctatum on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
Snout rounded; rostral small, just visible from above; frontal as long as or longer than its distance from the end of the snout; suture between the ocular and the frontal less than one third the length of the latter shield. Eye very small. Diameter of body 42 to 48 times in the total length. 15 scales round the middle of the body, 17 behind the head. Ventrals rather more than twice as broad as the contiguous scales, 184–198; subcaudals 15–18. Black above, beautifully iridescent; ventrals and the two lower series of scales on each side with a broad white border. Type locality: "Travancore, [...] under a stone in the Muti-Kuli Vayal, a little valley on the Asamboo range (4,500 feet elevation)"
Range & habitat
It is found in the Western Ghats between Radhanagari Wildlife Sanctuary in the north and Kanyakumari district (Tamil Nadu) in the south.
Wikipedia: “Geographic range”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Melanophidium punctatum in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 32402.