An international team of scientists identified the snake and its range, which includes Turkey, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, and Russia including a small region extending into the corner of
Anti-snake venom processing laboratory will soon start production at National Institute of Health (NIH), said Health Minister Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani on Friday.
A Kenyan man bit a python who wrapped him in its coils and hauled him up a tree in a struggle that lasted hours, local media said on Wednesday. Farm manager Ben Nyaumbe was working at the weekend when the serpent, apparently hunting for livestock, struck in the Malindi area of Kenya's Indian Ocean coast.
Puttur, dhns: A herpetologist here has come across white-coloured Checkered Keelbacks (
Coimbatore: The Forest Department officials on Thursday arrested three persons during a vehicle check and recovered a Sand Boa snake measuring nearly 1 m and said to be worth over Rs. 1 lakh.
Ahmedabad: The cramped snake house at Kamla Nehru Zoo in Kankaria is set to get a new makeover. Soon, visitors will be able to view the unique collection of native and exotic snakes in their natural surroundings. For that, one has to first enter the giant belly of pre-historic dinosaur-shaped dome.
70 persons suffer snakebites in four months in Narayangaon area Ten-year-old Hrishikesh Wable from Junnar taluka in Pune district did not realise he was bitten by a snake till he was gasping for breath and could not walk. Villagers who wasted precious time thinking it was a "scorpion" bite instead took him to a "tantrik" to cure him. However. when he turned unconscious, the relatives rushed him to Narayangaon, 20 km away from the Wadgaon Sahane village where he was put on the sole ventilator at the Dr Jal Mehta Rural Critical Care Centre.
There are so many misconceptions about snakes that any of the snake species spotted in residential areas cannot escape without harm from man. For many people immensely fear snakes. But, at least, in Goa, people seem to be shaking off their preconceived notions. They call snake rescuers rather than kill the reptiles. The Wildlife Division of the Forest Department last year succeeded in trapping and saving 1020 snakes across the State.
The Principal Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) and Chief Wildlife Warden has permitted noted herpetologist Romulus Whitaker and his team to carry out telemetric tracking studies on rat snakes and kin
Snakes can't hear as they don't have an ear, it is often believed. But, a new study has found that the reptiles do possess an "inner' ear with a functional cochlea which they use to detect vibrations caused by prey. A team of international researchers has carried out the study and found that the ears of the snakes are sensitive enough to not only hear the prey approaching, but also to allow the brain to localise the direction it is coming from. According to the researchers, any disturbance at a sandy surface leads to vibration waves that radiate away from the source along the surface. These waves behave like ripples on the surface of a pond after a stone is dropped into water. However, these sand waves propagate much quicker (the speed is about 50 metres per second) than at water surface. But on the other hand, much more slowly than, for instance in stone and the amplitude of the waves may be as small as a couple of thousands of a millimetre. "Yet, a snake can detect these small ripples. If it rests its head on the ground, the two sides of the lower jaw are brought into vibration by the incoming wave. These vibrations are then transmitted directly into the inner ear by means of a chain of bones attached to the lower jaw. "This process is comparable to the transmission of auditory signals by the ossicles in the human middle ear. The snake thus literally hears surface vibrations,' the study's lead author J Leo Van Hemmen of the Technical University, Munich was quoted by the ScienceDaily as saying. In their study, combining approaches from biomechanics and naval engineering with the modelling of neuronal circuits, the team has shown that the snake can use its ears to perform the same trick for sound arriving through sand.
