Looking to rehome this beauty! $150
Erpeton tentaculatum /Tentacled snake
Range: Southeast Asia, from Thailand to Singapore.
Diagnosis: A small snake with keeled scales, small ventral scutes, and a pair of flat, oval projections at the tip of the snout.
Natural History: Tentacled snakes are truly unique: there are no other species that share the paired tentacle structures, while those species with single nose projections are arboreal. The ventral scales are very small in this species, and though it can move about on land, it does so both rarely and poorly. Tentacled snakes are almost wholly aquatic, living in fresh and brackish water. Their gray and brown-mottled skin is generally covered with a coat of green algae, lost only after a shed.
Like many other members of the Homalaspinae group of colubrids, tentacled snakes are rear fanged and very mildly venomous. Their bite may subdue small fishes, but is harmless to humans. There has been considerable speculation about any possible function of the odd snout appendages, ranging from prey detection to feelers. My conjecture is that they act as flow detectors, helping the snakes account for water movement when lining up a strike at prey.
Erpeton tentaculatum /Tentacled snake
Range: Southeast Asia, from Thailand to Singapore.
Diagnosis: A small snake with keeled scales, small ventral scutes, and a pair of flat, oval projections at the tip of the snout.
Natural History: Tentacled snakes are truly unique: there are no other species that share the paired tentacle structures, while those species with single nose projections are arboreal. The ventral scales are very small in this species, and though it can move about on land, it does so both rarely and poorly. Tentacled snakes are almost wholly aquatic, living in fresh and brackish water. Their gray and brown-mottled skin is generally covered with a coat of green algae, lost only after a shed.
Like many other members of the Homalaspinae group of colubrids, tentacled snakes are rear fanged and very mildly venomous. Their bite may subdue small fishes, but is harmless to humans. There has been considerable speculation about any possible function of the odd snout appendages, ranging from prey detection to feelers. My conjecture is that they act as flow detectors, helping the snakes account for water movement when lining up a strike at prey.
