The lesser black krait (''Bungarus lividus'') is a species of
venomous elapid snake found in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
,
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
, and
Nepal
Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne,
सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
.
The specific epithet is after Latin ''lividus'', meaning “bluish metal-colored” or “lead-colored”, referring to the snake's coloration.
Description
The ''Lesser black krait'' is a rather small sized snake. The body (dorsum) is smooth and black to bluish-black in colour. The upper lip is white. The ventrals are white with grey edges.
The eyes are small, black with round pupils. Eyes are positioned more towards the snout.
The scales are arranged in 15 dorsal rows (15:15:15). The mid-dorsal (vertebral) scales are only slightly enlarged than the other rows. Anal and subcaudal scales are undivided. 7 supralabials(3rd & 4th touches eye), 7 infralabials(3rd touches anterior genial); Temporals 1+2; Postocular 2.
[Das, Abhijit 2018. Notes on Snakes of the Genus Bungarus (Serpentes: Elapidae) from Northeast India. in: C. Sivaperuman, K. Venkataraman (eds.), Indian Hotspots, Springer]
Distribution
India(North Bengal, Northeast India), Bangladesh, Nepal
Type locality: Assam, India
Ecology
Feeding
The krait is primarily ophiophagous, meaning it preys on other snakes.
References
Further reading
*
Boulenger, G.A. 1890. The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Batrachia. Taylor & Francis. London. xviii, 541 pp.
*
Cantor, T.E. 1839. ''Spicilegium serpentium indicorum''
arts 1 and 2
The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both ...
Proc. Zool. Soc. London 7: 31–34, 49–55.
*
Slowinski, J. B. 1994. A phylogenetic analysis of ''Bungarus'' (Elapidae) based on morphological characters. Journal of Herpetology 28(4):440-446.
lividus
Snakes of Asia
Reptiles of Bangladesh
Reptiles of India
Reptiles of Nepal
Reptiles described in 1839
Taxa named by Theodore Edward Cantor
{{Elapidae-stub