Snakes of Telangana: An annotated checklist with new locality records and notes on natural history

With every growing human population and the resultant shrinkage of natural habitats, snakes are frequently encountered in and around human settlements, leading to widespread human-wildlife conflict. Conservation efforts involve rescue & relocation of 'stray' snakes, to mitigate snakebites, human deaths & snake mortality. We utilized snake rescue data of Friends of Snakes Society, Hyderabad, Telangana, recorded between the years 1995 and 2020, to present an annotated snake checklist for Telangana, along with their distribution. Further, opportunistic encounters and temporary captive care of the rescued species yielded significant insights into habitat preferences, dietary choices, aposematic responses, breeding cycles, etc., of various species of this region

Citizen science and online data: Opportunities and challenges for snake ecology and action against snakebite

The secretive behavior and life history of snakes makes studying their biology, distribution, and the epidemiology of venomous snakebite challenging. One of the most useful, most versatile, and easiest to collect types of biological data are photographs, particularly those that are connected with geographic location and date-time metadata. Photos verify occurrence records, provide data on phenotypes and ecology, and are often used to illustrate new species descriptions, field guides and identification keys, as well as in training humans and computer vision algorithms to identify snakes. We scoured eleven online and two offline sources of snake photos in an attempt to collect as many photos of as many snake species as possible, and attempt to explain some of the inter-species variation in photograph quantity among global regions and taxonomic groups, and with regard to medical importance, human population density, and range size. We collected a total of 725,565 photos—between 1 and 48,696 photos of 3098 of the world's 3879 snake species (79.9%), leaving 781 “most wanted” species with no photos (20.1% of all currently-described species as of the December 2020 release of The Reptile Database). We provide a list of most wanted species sortable by family, continent, authority, and medical importance, and encourage snake photographers worldwide to submit photos and associated metadata, particularly of “missing” species, to the most permanent and useful online archives: The Reptile Database, iNaturalist, and HerpMapper.ISSN:2590-171

Phylogeny and conservation status of the Indian egg-eater snake, Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt, 1863 (Serpentes, Colubridae): Supplementary material

The Indian egg-eater (<i>Elachistodon westermanni</i>) is a monotypic species of the Genus <i>Elachistodon</i> distributed across the Indian sub-continent. In Africa, there are 13 species of egg-eating snakes of the Genus <i>Dasypeltis</i>. These two genera, <i>Elachistodon </i>and <i>Dasypeltis</i> were thought to be closely related due to similar diet specialization, and shared biogeographic history between the Indian sub-continent and the continent of Africa. In our study, we amplified three mitochondrial genes and one nuclear gene from <i>E. westermanni</i> and reconstructed molecular phylogeny utilizing published sequences to understand the evolutionary relationships between the African, and the Indian egg-eating snakes. We used morphological characters to reinforce our inferences on phylogenetic relationships. We show that the Indian egg-eater is sister to a set of cat snakes of the Genus <i>Boiga</i>,<i> </i>and it does not share recent ancestry with the African egg-eating snakes. Morphological character states point at similarities between <i>Elachistodon </i>and<i> Dasypeltis</i> only in characters associated with their feeding behaviour. <i>Elachistodon</i> <i>westermanni</i> was similar to the <i>Boiga </i>spp<i>.</i> in several other morphological characters, and we provisionally assign <i>E. westermanni</i> under the genus <i>Boiga</i>. Compilation of records of <i>E. westermanni</i> across the Indian sub-continent over the years revealed a positive "Lazarus" effect. We conclude that, the egg-eating behaviour and the associated morphological characters in the snake genera <i>Dasypeltis</i> and <i>Elachistodon </i>are a result of convergent evolution. Based on the conservation status of <i>E. westermanni</i>, it could serve as a flagship species to conserve important wildlife habitats that are being lost rapidly in India

Citizen science and online data: Opportunities and challenges for snake ecology and action against snakebite

The secretive behavior and life history of snakes makes studying their biology, distribution, and the epidemiology of venomous snakebite challenging. One of the most useful, most versatile, and easiest to collect types of biological data are photographs, particularly those that are connected with geographic location and date-time metadata. Photos verify occurrence records, provide data on phenotypes and ecology, and are often used to illustrate new species descriptions, field guides and identification keys, as well as in training humans and computer vision algorithms to identify snakes. We scoured eleven online and two offline sources of snake photos in an attempt to collect as many photos of as many snake species as possible, and attempt to explain some of the inter-species variation in photograph quantity among global regions and taxonomic groups, and with regard to medical importance, human population density, and range size. We collected a total of 725,565 photos-between 1 and 48,696 photos of 3098 of the world's 3879 snake species (79.9%), leaving 781 "most wanted" species with no photos (20.1% of all currently-described species as of the December 2020 release of The Reptile Database). We provide a list of most wanted species sortable by family, continent, authority, and medical importance, and encourage snake photographers worldwide to submit photos and associated metadata, particularly of "missing" species, to the most permanent and useful online archives: The Reptile Database, iNaturalist, and HerpMapper