
Common name: Black shield-tail snakes Melanophidium is a genus of nonvenomous shield-tail snakes endemic to the Western Ghats of India. These species are identifiable by having a mental groove in their chin shields. Currently, four species are recognized, including one newly described species.
GENUS
頦溝蛇屬(學名:Melanophidium)是蛇亞目盾尾蛇科下的一個屬,主要包括分布於南印度一帶的一種無毒蛇種。目前共有3個品種已被確認。
via GBIF
Common name: Black shield-tail snakes Melanophidium is a genus of nonvenomous shield-tail snakes endemic to the Western Ghats of India. These species are identifiable by having a mental groove in their chin shields. Currently, four species are recognized, including one newly described species.
==Natural history== Their very smooth and glossy skin is said to be highly iridescent and is functional in warding off debris during burrowing. They are typically fossorial and nocturnal, becoming active during rainy nights.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).