Snakes of Sri Lanka | 5 % to sl-charity

Snakes and human conflicts are a familiar thing in tropical islands if you’re not living in a very urban area. At least once a month we happened to counteract with snakes and Sri Lankans have a lot of fear and misbeliefs on snakes. Further during our info session about steemit yesterday, our friend @sandupi is also visited by one of them and I thought of writing about most venomous 5 snakes in Sri Lanka and how to identify them and some other general facts about snakes.

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There are 105 snakes in total in Sri Lanka and 15 of them are marine snakes. All of them are highly venomous but hardly report any deaths of humans. Out of 90 in the land, only 5 are deadly venomous and most of the others are non-venomous which means they mean no harm to humans. Let’s look at one by one briefly.

1 . Indian Cobra / නාගයා

No needs of long introductions needed, probably the most commonly found yet so feared snake in Sri Lanka and has a lot of folk stories and myths related. Sometimes identifying a cobra can be tricky to an armature from a rat snake. Two main differences are that a cobra has excessive skin near head and a black strip below eye, which is the most significant and trusted feature for recognition.

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2. Russell’s Viper/ තිත් පොලගා

Russell’s viper causes the most number of deaths happening due to snake bites in Sri Lanka and one of the most feared one as well. After a bite, the blood inside veins tend to solidify within couple of hours so it’s extremely important to give immediate medical treatment. They are mostly active in night but can be seen in day times as well and unlike a cobra, it stays still calmly and once the threat or prey comes near, extend the body and attack. It’s not hard to identify Russell’s vipers but here’s a comparison of a Indian python and the viper, which some people recognize wrong.

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3. Common Indian krait/තෙල් කරවලා / මගමරුවා

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This one of the two deadly venomous Kraits are found in mostly dry zone, sometimes in intermediate zone and occasionally in wet zone of Sri Lanka and has a distinguished whitish double strips like rings regularly throughout the shining dark brown or black body. There are almost similar specie called wolf snakes/ රදනකයා which are completely harmless but people can’t identify them correctly most of the time hence they get killed.

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So This common Indian krait has a identical hexoganal type raw of scale on top of the body and he head is smaller and parallel to the body unlike wolf snakes. Above and below pictures would help to understand the differences clearly. Kraits' white stripes may fade once they grow older and sometimes the strips near head are not separated but completely separated towards the latter part of the body.

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4. Sri Lankan krait / මුදු කරවලා

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The other member of the Krait family is Sri Lankan Krait – endemic to Sri Lanka. Has very tiny teeth and sometimes it’s hard to even locate where the bite has happen but another deadly venomous one in the island. The venom could directly affect to the heart and nerve system of the body within few hours but as they mostly live in jungles, lesser amount of bites have been recorded. They are also very similar to Indian krait but the only difference is that instead of two strips together, the Sri Lankan krait has one clear strip throughout the body regularly.

5. Saw scaled viper/ වැලි පොළගා

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The last of the list is the saw scaled viper, mostly recorded in northern coastlines and eastern coastal line to Yala. This is the most venomous viper specie in the world but the Sri Lankan saw scaled viper considered not that venomous and not much fatal incidents recorded. The reason for that is said to be that having plenty of food in their ecosystems and they are smaller in size (about 1-2 feet long) so that venom does not get into human body much. They have a triangular head and a print like a bird’s leg on top of the head and spotted body of hay and mud color with two whitish lines runs along the sides of the lower body.

Other than these five, pit vipers(කුණකටුවා/ පොළොන් තෙලිස්සා) is also medically considered as a highly venomous snake as their venom can kill someone who is not in best of health. And most of other snakes are completely harmless, people depending on misbelieves tend to kill them. But even though their venom is harmless, a bite could give you tetanus as there might be germs on their teeth and always better to seek medical advice on any snake bite.

So finally, snakes are also an important part of ecosystem and facing tragic deaths mainly because of people’s carelessness and unawareness. So as always, Getting educated about these species are the best way to conserve them and here I am encouraging all of you to join this Facebook group where I gained a lot of knowledge and saved a lot of lives of snakes already at my house and premises.

And if you can’t catch them correctly, here’s a list of snakes catchers in Sri Lanka. You can simply call them and they’ll remove the snake safely into another environment.

So, let’s get educated and save lives!

Stay safe,

-Ceyonese Eye-