Aspidelaps scutatus

Shield nose cobra ( Aspidelaps scutatus )

The shield nose cobra ( Aspidelaps scutatus, also shield or shield cobra snake ) is a snake of the genus appearances Cobras ( Aspidelaps ) from the family of poisonous snakes ( Elapidae ). It occurs in three or four subspecies in southern Africa.

Features

Shield nose cobras are small snakes, their stocky body reaches a length of 40 to 60 centimeters. The head is very short and is hardly on the neck. The name derives from is on the strikingly broad muzzle shield that covers the tip of the snout and runs to the top of the head at eye level to an obtuse-angled triangle. The head sides run out in a bright spot angle, neck and throat are black. Lower jaw and throat region are whitish. The body color varies from gray to brown or reddish brown to almost black saddle markings or irregular cross- bands. The belly is yellowish to grayish white. The hull has 21, rarely 23 rows of smooth or weakly gekielter shed in the middle, in males 25 to 30 and in females 20 to 24 Subkaudalschilde and an undivided anal shield on.

The subspecies A. s fulafula ( Bianconi 1849) is longer than the nominate up to 75 centimeters.

The subspecies A. s bachrani Mertens 1954 has a monochrome black head, neck and neck on, but is now no longer considered by most authors as a valid subspecies but only as a color variety.

Occurrence

The species prefers rocky or sandy semi-deserts. The nominate ( A. s scutatus ) occurs in Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe to the west and to the north of South Africa, A. s intermediatus Broadley, 1968 in the northeastern South Africa and A. s fulafula in the south of Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

Way of life

Shield nose cobras spend the day buried in the ground or in rodent burrows and hunt at night small amphibians, reptiles and mammals. When threatened, they straighten up, inflate the body and flat neck like a cobra from. More rarely, make the animals dead also bites are due to the small amount of venom delivered to humans usually not life threatening, also is usually happened with closed mouth.

The species is propagated by eggs.

Swell

• Ludwig Trutnau: poisonous snakes. Eugen Ulmer, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-8001-7371-9, pp. 56-58.