Aniliidae

Roll coral snake ( Anilius scytale )

The coral snake roll ( Anilius scytale ) is the only species of the family rolling snakes ( Aniliidae ). It is used in South America to Trinidad and the Amazon region into two subspecies ( A. s scytale and A. s phelpsorum ) ago. They inhabited tropical rain forests and cultivated land.

The position of the roll snakes within snakes is not yet fully understood. Previously they were placed in the former superfamily of snake -like. However, this was split on the basis of genetic studies, with the largest groups are the boas and pythons. Compared to these, the roll snakes closer to the superfamily of blindsnakes ( Typhlopoidea ) are related, which was not taken into giant snake -like.

Features

Roll coral snakes are medium sized snakes with cylindrical body, short tail, and little from the neck cuffs, flattened head. The skull bones are fused or strengthened in adapting to a grave lifestyle, teeth sitting on the premaxilla, maxilla, palatine, pterygoid and the lower jaw. The animals are bright red with a whitish belly, black scales peaks and numerous irregular black bands that completely stretch across the back and belly in the basic color. They thus similar to the highly toxic coral snake, but unlikely to be a mimicry based on the presumed higher evolutionary age of the species. It reaches a length of 60 to 90 cm.

The nominate has 248 ventral scales and 12 tail shields. In the middle of the body, the dorsal scales are arranged in 21 rows. All scales are smooth.

The animals possess After spurs similar to those of other original snakes like the python and Boaartigen.

Way of life

Due to the grave end of life of the coral snakes roll is about their behavior, little is known. As prey animals are used on the surface caught amphibians, lizards and small snakes, and possibly insects and fish. The animals are ovoviviparous and give birth to 6-15 live young.

Swell

• Hans EA Boos: The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago. Texas A & M University Press, 2001, ISBN 9,781,585,441,167th
• Mark O'Shea: Boas and Pythons of the World. New Holland Publishers, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84537-544-7.