Checkered Keelback Snake

Description:

Olive-greenish-yellow with black markings.

Habitat:

Usually the waterbody nearby but due to the monsoon rains the water level has risen and freshwater rain channels are now waterways for aquatic /semi-aquatic creatures. This snake was swimming leisurely in the channel and resting its head on the sides (rest of the body was invisible in the murky water); then it saw me!!!

Notes:

This snake can swim under water for quite a long time without coming up for air. It bites quite easily i.e., if provoked. Non venomous. My maid's kid daughter once very nonchalantly told me a Dhora saap (C. keelback) had bit her but she had shaken it off...apparently it had come to feed on the tiny fish that were attracted to where she was washing dinner plates in the water body referred to above. BTW, Dhora Saap is accepted Bengali idiomatic use for inconsequential people! How rude. (Saap= Snake)