Himalayan Wolf Snake | Lycodon mackinnoni, Wall (1906)

May 23, 2018

Lycodon is an extensive genus of serpents extending from the Caspian Sea to Philippines and Indonesia. There are about 25 species of genus Lycodon have been in documented and eleven of them occurring in Indian subcontinent. Lycodon mackinnoni commonly known as Mackinnon’s wolf snake or Himalayan wolf snake is a species of colubridae family of snakes, first reported by Wall in 1906 from Missouri. It is an oviparous species of snakes.

Lycodon mackinnoni (Manhas et al., 2015)

The species is high altitude species & resides near human settlement mostly in fields or crevices of house. The body of species is blackish in colour with yellow and white streaks profusely distributed dorsally extending towards tail. Head is blackish in colour with divided nasals; labials white. The ventral side of the snake is whitish with a black brown spots on lateral side. The wolf title is given to snakes is just because the front teeth of the snakes appear like teeth’s of wolf.

Distribution:
Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir (Doda district).

Morphological character
Dorsal	17:17:13/15
Supraocular	2
Parietal	2
Prefrontal	2
Preocular	1
Postocular	1
Loreal	1
Temporal	1+2/2+3
Supra labial	8/8 (3-5 in eye contact)
Infra labial	7/7
Nasals	2
Ventral	163-187
Anal	2
Sub caudal	48-56 (paired)
Snout vent length(SVL)	354 mm
Tail Length (TL)	80 mm

Type: Non-Venomous

Literature cited:

Biswas S, Sanyal DP. (1965). A new wolf snake of the genus Lycodon boie (Reptilia: Serpents: Colubridae) from the Andaman and Nicober island. Proc. Zool. Sco. Calcutta. 18:137-141.

Daltry JC, Wuster W. (2002). A new species of wolf snake from the Cardamom mountains, Southwestern Cambodia, Herpetological, 58 (4): 498-504.

Guptha MB, Thulasaih T, Prasad NVS. (2007). New locality record of yellow collared wolf snake
Lycodon flavicollis Mukherjee and Bhupathy, 2007 from Seshachalam Biosphere reserve, Eastern Ghats, Andhra Pradesh, India. Journal of research in Biology. 4(3): 1328-1331.

Lanza B. (1999). A new species of Lycodon from Philippines, with a key to the genus (Reptilia: Serpents: Colubridae). Tropical Zoo, 12:89-104.

Manhas A, Wanganeo RRN, Wanganeo A (2015). First record of Himalayan Wolf Snake (Lycodon mackinnoni Wall, 1906) in Doda District of Lower Himalayas, Jammu and Kashmir, India. World Research Journal Biology of Biological Sciences, 1(1): 002-005

Mukherjee D, Bhupathy S. (2007). A new wolf snake (Serpents: Colubridae: Lycodon) from Anakatti hills, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. Russian Journal of Herpetology, 14 (1): 21-26.

Slowinski JB, Pawar S, Win H, Thin T, Gyi SW, Oo SL, Tun H. (2001). A new Lycodon (Serpentes: Colubridae) from Northeast India and Myanmar (Burma). Proc. California acad. Sci., 52(20):397-405.

Smith MA. (1943). Reptilia and Amphibia: Vol. III Serpentes. In the Fauna of British India, published by Taylor and Francis, London.

Wall F. (1906). A new Himalayan snake (Lycodon mackinnoni). Journal of Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc., 17:29-30.

Wolf Snake