Flower pot snake
| Flower pot snake | ||||||||||||
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Flower pot snake in Same ( East Timor ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Indotyphlops braminus | ||||||||||||
| ( Daudin , 1803) |
The flower pot snake ( Indotyphlops braminus , Syn . : Ramphotyphlops braminus ), also Brahmin worm snake , is a non-poisonous snake species from the family of blind snakes (Typhlopidae).
features
The flower pot snake is a very small snake with an average body length of 6 to 16 and a maximum length of 23 centimeters. The head has a rounded snout and stunted but visible eyes and is not set off from the neck. The head scales are small and similar to the body scales. The body is slender and shiny silvery gray, brownish or shiny purple-black with a gray, cream-colored or brownish belly. The tip of the tail has a small spur.
Way of life
Flowerpot snakes dig in leaf litter or earth between plant roots and feed on insects, their eggs and larvae. They are the only known species of snake that reproduce purely parthenogenetically . So there are only females who, under favorable conditions, lay one to eight eggs , from which cloned young animals emerge. In contrast to most other vertebrates, the set of chromosomes is not diploid , but triploid , so there are three copies of each of the 14 chromosomes.
distribution
The original range of the flower pot snake is in Southeast Asia and India . However, the species has been carried off very far by humans, probably with soil adhering to plants. Due to parthenogenetic reproduction, one abducted animal is sufficient to establish a new population . Flower pot snakes are found on every continent except Antarctica . Populations are known from Taiwan , Indonesia , Papua New Guinea , Northern Australia , Hawaii , North and Central America , Africa , Madagascar, and on various islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans . Areas at heights of 0 to 1500 meters are populated.
swell
- Mark O'Shea: Boas and Pythons of the World . New Holland Publishers, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84537-544-7 .
- Description of the Florida Museum of Natural History
- ^ Addison H. Wynn, Charles J. Cole, Alfred L. Gardner: Apparent Triploidy in the Unisexual Brahminy Blind Snake, Ramphotyphlops braminus . In: American Museum Novitates . tape 2868 , 1987, pp. 1–7 (English, amnh.org [PDF]).
