Palni shieldtail
Uropeltis pulneyensis, commonly known as the Palni shieldtail, is a species of uropeltid snake endemic to the Western Ghats of India.
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TerrestrialTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land (e.g., cats, ants, snails), as compared with aquatic animals, which liv...
Oviparous animals are female animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive...
Precocial species are those in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching. Precocial species are normall...
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starts withDescription after Beddome (1864: 180): "Rostral rather obtuse, produced back between the nasals, and touching the frontals, nasals not meeting; eye small, in front of the ocular shield; no supraorbitals; vertical 6-sided; occipitals rounded behind; 4 upper labials. Scales round the neck 19, round the body 17; subcaudals, male, about 12, female 6-8. Tail compressed, ending in a small spinose keel, more or less bicuspid. Scales of the tail all smooth. Colour uniform earthy brown; a lateral bright yellow streak from the labials continued on each side of the trunk, about 1 or 1½ inch in length; a few minute yellow specks on the back; belly with broad bright yellow transverse bands, very irregular as to number and shape; yellow markings about the vent and tail."
After Beddome (1864: 180), pulneyensis and wynandensis "...differ from the typical form of this genus in their much smaller size and in the absence of a supraorbital shield. As, however, they have the same compressed tail, I prefer keeping them in this genus to making a new genus for them."
Boulenger (1893) adds the following details:
Adults may attain a total length of 38 cm (15 inches).
Portion of the rostral visible from above longer than its distance from the frontal. Frontal longer than broad. Diameter of the eye ½ the length of the ocular shield. Diameter of the body 30 to 38 times in the total length. Ventrals about twice as large as the contiguous scales, 161-180. Tail somewhat laterally compressed. Usually some of the terminal dorsal scales of the tail with faint keels.
It is found in Southern Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu and Kerala states of South India (Palni, High Wavy Mountains and Travancore hills, 5,000-7,000 feet).
