Chrysopelea
Chrysopelea ornata
The jewelry tree snakes ( Chrysopelea ) are a kind of tree-dwelling snakes that are common in the tropical rain forests of South and Southeast Asia. They are famous for their ability to glide from tree to tree, and are therefore often also called flying serpents. There are five known species.
Jewelry tree snakes are snakes illusion ( Opistoglyphen ), so toxic. Your fangs are located back of the jaw. They help in killing the prey during the Verschlingvorgangs, while facilitating the administered poison digestion. For people their venom is not particularly dangerous.
Description
Most species can reach a length of 1 to 1.2 m, Chrysopelea pelias, the smallest type, but is only 60-70 cm long.
Dissemination
The habitat of the jewelry tree snakes extends across the South and Southeast Asian lowland rain forests. They are parts of southwest India, Sri Lanka and southern China, south of Kunming via Burma, Thailand and Vietnam, spread across Indonesia to the Philippines.
Gliding
Although no external morphological features are present, these snakes can overcome long distances by gliding, navigate in the air and even turn around. In one experiment was allowed Chrysopelea paradisi slide from a 9.6 m high tower on a flat terrain and watched this in stereo with two cameras. As the researchers discovered, the snakes, the ribs spread when flying to the outside. In this case, the bottom takes the form of an airfoil, the width of the line is doubled.
Species
The genus currently comprises five recognized species:
- Chrysopelea ornata
- Chrysopelea paradisi
- Chrysopelea pelias
- Chrysopelea rhodopleuron
- Chrysopelea taprobanica