Rare venomous snake found alive for the first time in Uttarakhand

DEHRADUN

: A rare species of snake has been discovered by the scientists of the

Wildlife Institute of India

(WII) at an altitude of 6,233 feet in the Benog Wildlife Sanctuary of Mussoorie.

The scientists spotted the

black-bellied coral snake

(Sinomicrurus nigriventer) — a rare and threatened species found in altitudes between 2,500 and 6,000 feet — on the way to Bhadraj temple. According to scientists, this is an extremely rarely-found and venomous snake.

A total of 107 species of this snake have been discovered around the world but only seven of them have so far been found in India. According to WII scientists, this is the first sighting of a live snake of this species in

Uttarakhand

. They added that a dead snake of this species was found in Nainital in 2019.

“The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) is bestowed with rich and endemic biodiversity. The occurrence of this species in Nainital and Mussoorie forest divisions indicates that the cool sub-tropical and temperate forests (3000-6000 feet) with dense grassy slopes are under-explored in terms of reptilian diversity. It is quite a significant finding,” said Abhijit Das, a scientist at the Dehradun-based Wildlife Institute of India.

Last year, scientists had found the species in the Solan district of Himachal Pradesh. “This snake is present in the 500-km stretch starting from Solan to Mussoorie and Nainital. Its geographical range has clearly extended,” added Das.

The sighting of the snake has been extensively covered in a scientific paper ‘Black-bellied Coral Snake Sinomicrurus nigriventer: An extended distribution in the western Himalayas, India’ that was published in the ‘Journal of Threatened Taxa’ on June 26. The authors of the scientific paper are Sipu Kumar, Jignasu Dolia, Vartika Chaudhary, Amit Kumar and Abhijit Das.


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