Checkered Snake

Description:

This is a fairly rare little colubrid snake (I've seen only 6). It is a slender snake that can grow to slightly over a meter although the longest I have seen was 86.7 cm. The ground color is black and it is liberally "checkered" dorsally with small orange and yellow diamonds which somewhat form rows with the orange diamonds in the middle of the dorsum and the yellow going down the sides. The skin between the scales is white and can be seen when the snake's skin is stretched, after eating for example.

Habitat:

They are a tree snake, however many tree snakes can be found on the ground at times. This one was found in the Amazon rainforest of SE Ecuador about 2 meters up in a native house eating a gecko. You can see the white skin between the scales where the gecko ended up.

Notes:

This snake is called Serpiente Liana Pintada (Painted Vine Snake) in Spanish and simply Chichi napi by the natives, which they use for any "small slender snake." They are beautiful snakes. I'm glad I was able to rescue this one as the natives kill all snakes. Most have lost family members to snakebite so their fear is understood.