Annotated checklist of the snakes of Bengaluru Urban District, Karnataka, India with notes on their natural history, distribution, and population trends over the last 150 years

Abstract

Systematic and thorough studies of snake populations across large areas are rare in the tropics. Bengaluru city in southern India has not had a thorough checklist of snakes in over a century, during which time land-use changes, taxonomic revisions, and fluctuating reptile populations have left the current status of snakes of this region unclear. We combine data from snake rescues, visual encounter surveys, and other reliable records to generate a contemporary checklist of 33 snake species (15 of which are novel) present within the Bengaluru Urban District with comments on their apparent habitat preferences. We also provide evidence and insight on six additional species that have not been recorded but potentially occur within the limits of the district. Compared with the earlier checklist, all but 4 species (Naja naja, Ptyas mucosa, Daboia russelii, and Fowlea piscator) have shown considerable decline within city limits. Additionally, all of India's "Big Four" medically significant venomous snake species (Naja naja, Bungarus caeruleus, Daboia russelii, and Echis carinatus) are found within the district. Naja naja and Daboia russelii appear to be well-adjusted to urbanization with serious ramifications for human-wildlife conflict and healthcare in the future as the majority of Indian snakebite deaths can be attributed to these two species. The population trajectory of Daboia russelii is of particular interest as it was classified as "not common" in the previous checklist, but it is presently one of the most abundant snake species in the area. Our study provides a new baseline that can be used to monitor ophidian population trends going forward.

Trophic Niche Partitioning between Sympatric Naja naja and Ptyas mucosa: Crowdsourced Data in Application to Community Ecology

“…Elapids are in fact considered to have a high WR in which larger individuals forage on a variety of prey animals and occasionally consume snakes that exceed their own mass (Greene, 1983; Shine and Wall, 2007). Snake species that are commonly associated with human-dominated environments (Barhadiya and Ghosh, 2021; Kalki et al, 2021) showed a high relative importance in the diet of N. naja ( N. naja , 31%; Daboia russelii , 23.8%; and Ptyas mucosa , 11.9%). Whether the high proportion of ophiophagy results from actual preference or simply from N. naja feeding more often on particularly common animals in an urban environment remains unknown.…”

First record of a Yellow-green Catsnake,<i> Boiga flaviviridis</i> Vogel and Ganesh 2013 (Colubridae), from Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Tirunelveli District, Tamil Nadu, India

“…Seven of the Indian species (B. beddomei, B. dightoni, B. flaviviridis, B. forsteni, B. nuchalis, B. thackerayi, B. trigonata) are known from the Western Ghats (Narayanan et al 2023), but only two (B. flaviviridis and B. forsteni) have been recorded in forested areas of both the Eastern and Western Ghats (Ganesh et al 2020a). The Yellow-green Catsnake (Boiga flaviviridis) was originally described from Berhampur, Odisha, India, and has subsequently been recorded from forested regions across much of peninsular India (Vogel and Ganesh 2013;Dharmendra et al 2016;Sharma et al 2016;Choure et al 2021;Kalki et al 2021; Fig. 1).…”