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Arrow snake (Psammophis lineolatus). Arrow snake: description of the species and its features Arrow snake poisonous or not

The front end of the muzzle of the arrow-snake is bluntly rounded. Intermaxillary shield almost not protrudes between the internasal. The suture between the internasals is less than 3 times shorter than the suture between the prefrontals. The posterior margin of the frontal shield is more or less rounded.

The posterior superior end of the posterior nasal shield is elongated into a pointed process, overlying the anterior part of the zygomatic shield from above. One low and long zygomatic shield; its length is approximately equal to the length of both nasals combined. One large preorbital shield in contact with the frontal; no infraorbital. Postorbital - 2, very rarely 3. Upper labials 9, of which 4- th, 5th and 6th touch the eye. Posterior mandibular of the same size as the anterior, or slightly longer.

From above, the body of the arrow-snake is olive, sandy or brownish in color, and the edges of the scales are slightly lighter than their middle. On the sides of the ridge there are 2 brown-brown or gray-brown longitudinal stripes starting on the supraorbital scutes; their edges are often outlined in black-brown. 1 slightly lighter stripe on the sides of the body and head, where, tapering, they continue forward along the lower part of the preorbital, zygomatic and nasal scutes. Gap between side and back stripes on the head and neck, and sometimes on the front of the body yellow or yellowish-orange.

The degree of expression of the pattern varies greatly, almost completely absent, and often only traces of medium longitudinal stripes are preserved on the body in the form of narrow dark dashed lines formed by dashes running in the middle of the back of the scales. Along the frontal shield and in the region of the suture between the parietals there is a longitudinal dark stripe. The anterior part of the belly is yellowish, the posterior part is white; indistinct grayish, brownish or olive-gray spots, usually occupying the middle of the ventral scutes, are expressed mainly in the anterior part of the abdomen. The labial and mandibular scutes and adjacent throat scales usually have longitudinally located specks of the same color.



Arrow- snake (Psammophis lineolatus)

The snake arrow is distributed from the southern half of Kazakhstan and Central Asia to southern Mongolia, northwestern China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the extreme south of Eastern Transcaucasia in the west.

The snake arrow inhabits sandy deserts (Karakum, Kyzylkum, Muyunkum, etc.), where meets in fixed and semi-fixed sands. Rarely inhabited in clayey and wormwood semi-deserts, on takyrs, plump solonchaks, various kinds of rubble and stony soils, in loess foothills, in oases and mountain valleys, where it is known in places up to an altitude of 2600 m above sea level. In Transcaucasia lives on rocky slopes with bushes of saltwort and wormwood.

It uses burrows of rodents and lizards, spaces under stones and dense basal growths of desert shrubs as shelters. On fixed sands, the number is 2-3 individuals per 1 km of the route. After wintering in the desert Middle Asia appears in February, higher in the mountains (in Kyrgyzstan) - not earlier than the beginning of April. Active until mid-November.

The arrow-snake feeds on lizards, mainly various lizards and roundheads, also eating geckos, agamas and naked eyes. Rarely eats snakes. Prey often lies in wait, hiding on the branches of bushes. The victim first bites, opening its mouth wide, and then wraps itself around several rings of the body. Lizards die from a bite in a few seconds. For a person, the bite of an arrow-snake is not dangerous.

Laying of 3-11 strongly elongated eggs 7.5-15x30-55 mm in size in June-July. Young long 250-330 mm appear in late July - August.

Literature: Determinant amphibians and reptiles of the fauna of the USSR. Proc. allowance for students of biol. specialties ped. in-comrade. M., "Enlightenment", 1977. 415 p. from ill.; 16 l. ill.

The ARROW SNAKE (Psammophis lineolatus) is widespread in the deserts and semi-deserts of Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Central Asia, Northern Iran, Afghanistan and Eastern Transcaucasia. Its body length reaches 90 cm. The color of the upper side is olive-gray, sandy or brownish, and the edges of the scales are slightly lighter than their middle. Two longitudinal stripes of dark color stretch along the sides of the ridge, one slightly lighter strip is present on the sides of the body. The gap between the lateral and dorsal stripes on the head and neck is yellow or orange. The arrow-snake keeps on sands, stony or clay slopes with rare shrubs, often found on mountains and salt marshes. Especially numerous in thickets of saxaul. The place of shelter is rodent burrows, cracks in the soil, piles of stones. In the same shelters, snakes hibernate, and also spend the hottest months (in the southern part of the range) in summer hibernation. The arrow-snake got its name for the extraordinary swiftness of its movements. For a crawling large snake, writes V. N. Shnitnikov, a person has to run with great tension, and she often manages to escape even in an open place. The movement of a large arrow-snake gives the impression that it is moving with the help of some hidden mechanism, and not by the forces of the animal itself - so much does the speed of movement correspond to the barely noticeable movements of the body that actually cause it. It seems that the snake, having straightened up, glides along the ground completely independently of itself. The swiftness of the movements of the snake's arrow gave rise to an old Turkmen legend that it can "suddenly kill people, horses, camels and mules, piercing their hearts with one jump." The snake arrow climbs beautifully and often escapes on the branches from the chase. Due to its protective coloration and thin body, it can be very difficult to detect it even among the rare branches of saxaul. On the branches, snakes also escape the heat of the day, since at some distance from the hot surface of the soil the temperature is much lower. The height of the jumps of a fast-moving arrow-snake reaches 30-40 cm. The captured animal vigorously tries to free itself, but bites relatively rarely. Taken in hand, the tensed muscles of the snake are unusual to the touch: it seems that an elastic wire is embedded in its very dense and thin body. It can lift the body vertically upwards by more than half of its length and stretch horizontally by 35-40 cm when weighed. Even in a calm state, resting or basking in the sun, the arrow-snake prefers to straighten the body rather than twist into a ball. The food of the arrow-snake is made up exclusively of lizards: round-headed, foot-and-mouth disease, agamas. She hunts by lying in wait or hiding her prey, and when the latter is close enough, she makes a swift, barely perceptible throw for the eye, wrapping several rings of her body around the victim. After the lizard is firmly grasped, poisonous teeth are put into action. With its mouth wide open, the snake bites the victim by the neck, tightly compresses the jaws and loosens its grip only when the resistance of the prey weakens. Paralysis from poison, even in large lizards, occurs within a few seconds after the bite. After that, the arrow-snake dissolves the rings and, having licked the prey, slowly swallows it. Small and young snakes often feed on large insects. The bite of an arrow-snake for large mammals and humans is completely harmless. Eggs in the amount of 2-6 pieces are laid by females in June - July, young ones hatch in August.

Arrow snake - Psammophis lineolatus. The type area is deserts near the Caspian Sea. Brandt's description indicates: the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan and the surrounding Astrabad (Gorgan, or Gurgan) in northern Persia (Iran).

Head narrow, long, more than half as wide as long. The surface of the muzzle is concave, the lateral ribs are pointed. The eyes are large, the pupil is round. Frontal shield narrow and long. There are 17 rows of smooth scales around the body. Three upper labials are in contact with the eye.

Long thin snakes with a whip-like body. Body length up to 910 mm, tail length about 300 mm. There are 17 scales around the middle of the body; ventral scutes 168-204; undertail - 71-114 pairs. Anal shield divided; temporal scutes 2+3+3 or 1+2. The anterior end of the muzzle is bluntly rounded. The intermaxillary shield almost does not protrude between the internasal ones. The suture between the internasals is at least three times shorter than the suture between the prefrontals. The posterior margin of the frontal shield is more or less rounded. The posterior-upper end of the posterior nasal shield is elongated into a pointed process, overlying the anterior part of the zygomatic shield from above. One low and long zygomatic shield; its length is approximately equal to the length of both nasal scutes combined. One large preorbital shield in contact with the frontal, no infraorbital. Postorbitals two, very rarely three.

The maxillary teeth differ in length: 10-13 teeth, of which the middle one is the largest, in the back of the upper jaw 1-2 large teeth with a groove, separated from a row of small teeth by a toothless gap.

  • The area of ​​the species.

The arrow-snake is distributed from the southern half of Kazakhstan and Central Asia to southern Mongolia, northwestern China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the southernmost regions of the southeastern Transcaucasia (Azerbaijan). In northwestern China, its range covers Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Gansu Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The ZIN RAS collection contains collections of P.K. Kozlov from Inner Mongolia (the ruins of the dead city of Khara-Khoto and the southern regions of Mongolia - the Gurvan-Saikhan-Ula ridge, the Sevrey-Ula ridge, the southern slopes of the Mongolian Altai).

  • Distribution in Mongolia.

For the first time on the territory of the country, the species was discovered, oddly enough, only in 1925 by the expedition of P.K. Kozlov in the mountains of the Gobi Altai. These findings were published by Tsarevsky. Bannikov, summing up all the data, indicated only 10 locations of the arrow-snake on the map, and one of them is very isolated from the others (Dariganga).

Our data significantly expand our understanding of the distribution of the arrow-snake in Mongolia. Obviously, this species inhabits almost the entire Gobi part of the country, adhering mainly to the desert zone (from extremely arid to semi-deserts). Our data for the first time indicate the habitation of the arrow-snake in the Dzungarian Gobi in the Kobdo aimag. The finds noted by Orlova and Terbish belong to the eastern slope of the ridge. Tahiin-Shara-Nuru and are geographically isolated by this ridge from the Mongolian part of the Dzhungar Gobi. Given that this species does not occur high in the mountains, it can be assumed that the mountain ranges of the Mongolian Altai form a barrier to settlement. In the eastern and northern regions of the Gobi, this one is known from single finds. Borkin classifies the arrow-snake according to the nature of its range to the Turanian faunistic complex, Orlova and Semenov to the group of Asian South Palearctic species.

  • Variability.

Comparison of the data obtained by us with variations in morphological features in the arrow-snake in Central Asia and in China does not give grounds to single out any features of the Mongolian specimens.

Thus, the number of ventral scutes in the arrow-snake from Mongolia varies between 173 and 191, and the number of pairs of undercaudal scutes varies from 77 to 102. The number of scales around the body and upper labials is strictly constant, and a number of labials consists of 10 or 11 scutes. The anal scutes are always divided.

  • taxonomic position.

Despite the huge range, the species is very monomorphic. So far, intraspecific forms have not been identified. A comparative analysis of individuals from Mongolia and Central Asia does not show significant differences.

  • vertical distribution.

In Mongolia, it rises to the mountains up to 1800-2000 m above sea level. The minimum height of the finds is 700 m (Ingeni-Khovryn-Kholoi basin, No. 16). Thus, the altitude range is 1100-1300 m.

According to the data throughout the range, this species often enters the mountains along the slopes up to an altitude of 2600 m above sea level. m. in Afghanistan, 1700 m above sea level. m in Kyrgyzstan, 1500 m a.s.l. y. m. in Tajikistan. In the Kopetdag, it penetrates up to a height of 1000 m along wide intermountain depressions.

  • Biotopes.

The arrow-snake more often inhabits areas with loose substrate in desert and semi-desert regions; avoids open sands. Usually these are areas with sparse vegetation (wormwood, saltwort, caragana, almonds, rheomyria, parnolistny, etc.). Often snakes adhere to thorny bushes of dog rose or saltpeter, come across in low-growing saxaul, etc., where they find constant reliable shelters and food in the form of lizards. There are also takyrs and gravel-stony gammas with extremely depleted vegetation. They avoid steep slopes of hills and shores of saury. They are found in oases, wide, well-lit saury and gorges.

Alsophylax pipiens, Teratoscincus przewalskii, Cyrtopodion elongatus, Phrynocephalus versicolor, Laudakia stoliczkana altaica, Eremias argus, E. multiocellata, E. przewalskii, E. vermiculata, Eryx tataricus, Elaphedon dione, Coluber spinalis, and Agkistro spinalis are found in the arrow snake habitats in Mongolia. halys.

  • Seasonal activity.

Activity is purely diurnal, even in the hottest time of the year. The period of seasonal activity in Mongolia is much shorter than in Central Asia and southern Kazakhstan. In the southern regions of the Gobi, it lasts from May to September.

  • Reproduction.

Data on the breeding ecology of the arrow-snake in Mongolia are very fragmentary. A pregnant female caught in Bayan-Khongor aimag near the Ekhiin-Gol oasis on August 12 laid a clutch of eight eggs measuring 8.0-10.5 x 37.5-44.0 mm. All captured mature females in July in Bayan-Khongor and South Gobi aimags had from 5 to 11 eggs in their oviducts.

In Central Asia and Kazakhstan, 3-15 highly elongated eggs 7.5-15 x 30-55 mm in size are laid in June-early July. At the end of July-August, young snakes 250-330 mm long come out. In northern Tajikistan, oviposition occurs at the end of May-June, underyearlings appear at the end of August.

  • Food.

The arrow-snake is a typical saurophage; feeding on lizards is noted everywhere. In Mongolia, foot-and-mouth and roundheads (Eremias sp. and Phrynocephalus versicolor) are among its most common food items. Alsophylaxpipiens was found in the stomach of an arrow-snake in the South Gobi aimag near the village of Noen; in Bayan-Khongor aimag, south of the Shara-Khalsny-Bulak oasis, a caught arrow-snake regurgitated Teratoscincus przewalskii.

The feeding pattern remains similar in this species throughout its range. According to the frequency of occurrence in the diet of arrow-snakes in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the basis of nutrition is made up of various types of foot-and-mouth disease living there, less often - geckos, bare-eyed, round-headed and agamas, in some cases - snakes. Indications of insect remains in the contents of the stomachs of the arrow-snake are erroneous, most likely, they enter the stomachs of the snake from the stomachs of insect-eating lizards that have become the prey of these snakes.

  • Enemies.

No data are available for Mongolia. According to data from Central Asia, this snake is hunted and eaten by gray monitor lizards, sand ephs, kites, eating snakes, a black crow, an eared hedgehog, and a fox. In Mongolia, apparently, many birds of prey and mammals feed on it.

  • Behavior.

Prey can lie in wait on the branches of shrubs. The snake-arrow first bites the victim, and then wraps the rings around the body. Poisonous teeth are located at the posterior end of the upper jaw, deep in the mouth. Poisonous to Small Animals - Lizards are killed by snake arrow venom after a few seconds. This snake is not dangerous to humans. The snake is distinguished by the swiftness of its movements, for which it got its name. These same features of her locomotion probably served as the basis for beliefs in Mongolia that she is able to fly several meters behind a person, chasing him, and reaching, passes through the body and kills the victim. Similar legends are known about the arrow-serpent in Central Asia, where it is also considered very dangerous and even poisonous.

  • conservation status.

A species with a vast Eurasian range, which occupies a significant part of the south of the territory of Mongolia, and an almost continuous distribution pattern. Most of the arrow-snake's range is located in protected areas. The destruction of these snakes by the population as poisonous is called specific anthropic load.

Genus Sand snakes(Psammophis)

, arrow(Psammophis lineolatus (Brandt, 1836))


insert-tree-animal SYNONYMS

Taphrometopon lineolatum

DESCRIPTION

Thin, long, up to 91 cm snake with approximately2.5-3.0 times shorter tail. narrow head weaklydelimited from the neck; Its length is more than 2 timeswidth. The pupil is round. The frontal shield is long and verynarrow. The upper surface of the muzzle is somewhat concave, and itsthe lateral margins are noticeably sharpened. The zygomatic shield is longand narrow. Preorbital 1 and 2-3 postglacial, upper lipThere are 9 of them, of which usually 4, the 5th and 6th touch the eye. Aroundmid-body 17 smooth scales. Abdominal scutes 168-204,undertail 71 - 114 pairs. The anal shield is divided. Coloringupperparts olive grey, sandy grey, orbrownish gray. Along the entire body pass 4heads beginning on scutes dark with black edgesstripes, often absent or remaining onlyin the form of narrow dark, sometimes dotted stripes. Bellywhite, monochromatic or with greyish, brownish orolive-gray spots, sometimes merging into a continuousa strip running in the middle of its anterior third.

From other snakes living in the sands, it is well distinguished by a long and thin body.

HABITAT

Lives in sandy deserts, where it occurs on fixed and semi-fixed sands. Rarely inhabits clayey and wormwood semi-deserts, loess foothills, oases and mountain valleys, where it is known up to 2600 m above sea level. Common in Central Asia.

LIFESTYLE

Rodent burrows, spaces under stones and dense basal growths of desert shrubs serve as shelters. Active from February - March to October.In June - July, the female lays 3-11 strongly elongated eggs 3.0-5.5 cm long. Young ones up to 35 cm long appear in July - August. An extremely mobile snake, moving with great speed along the sand and especially in thickets of bushes, often rises to the branches, lying in wait for prey.

FOOD

Feeds on various desertlizards. The seized prey is wrapped around several rings of the body. Lizards die from a bite usually within a few seconds.

AREAL

Southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, as well as Eastern Transcaucasia.

HAZARD TO HUMANS

The snake is poisonous, but the bites of the arrow-snake are harmless to humans, but the local population unreasonably considers it poisonous. Poisonous teeth are deep in the mouth, so the shooter can only bite by covering the entire object with his mouth.


A PHOTO
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LIST OF USED LITERATURE

  • Bannikov A.G., Darevsky I.S., Rustamov A.K. "Amphibians and reptiles of the USSR"."Thought", Moscow, 1971.

Subfamily False snakes - Boiginae

Class: Reptilia = Reptiles

Subclass: Lepidosauria = Lepidosaurs, scaled lizards

Order: Squamata Oppel = Scaled

Suborder: Serpentes (Ophidia) Linnaeus = Snakes

Species: Psammophis lineolatus Brandt = Arrow-snake

Arrow snake - Psammophis lineolatus Brandt

Class Reptiles, or Reptiles - Reptilia Suborder Snakes - Ophidia, or Serpentes Family Snakes - Colubridae Subfamily False snakes - Boiginae

A slender snake up to 90 cm long. The upper side of the body is grayish-olive, sandy, brown. There are two dark stripes on the sides.

Distributed in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. Inhabits sands, stony or clay slopes, salt marshes, saxaul thickets. It climbs beautifully, often escaping from danger on the branches. The movements are extremely fast, justifying the name. Able to lift and hold the front of the body horizontally on weight. It feeds mainly on lizards, which it covers with body rings, but kills with a bite of poisonous teeth. The bite is harmless to humans.

About the arrow snake, there is a belief that it rushes at a person or an animal and pierces the heart with all its might. Many tales are told about snakes, but this is only about one. And a legend was born thanks to the snake's ability to move very quickly. Indeed, like an arrow shot from a bow, it rushes along the ground - thin, slender, elastic, with a small pointed head. This snake is very accurately named - an arrow. And it is not clear - for the rapid movement or for the appearance it was called that. Rather, for both. The snake arrow moves at such a speed that a person cannot always catch up with it. But not in order to "pierce the heart", this snake rushes, but in order to save itself. All her dexterity, all her skill is directed precisely at this. Leave, run away, hide in a burrow of some rodent, under stones, in a crack in the ground. There will be no suitable shelter under the earth with the same swiftness she will climb a tree and hide there, becoming completely invisible due to her color.

A snake can also jump upwards by 40 centimeters, in length - by half a meter or more. But again, not in order to pierce someone's heart, but in order to grab a gaping lizard.

ARROW SNAKE (Psammophis lineolatus)

The ARROW SNAKE (Psammophis lineolatus) is widespread in the deserts and semi-deserts of Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Central Asia, Northern Iran, Afghanistan and Eastern Transcaucasia. Its body length reaches 90 cm. The color of the upper side is olive-gray, sandy or brownish, and the edges of the scales are slightly lighter than their middle. Two longitudinal stripes of dark color stretch along the sides of the ridge, one slightly lighter strip is present on the sides of the body. The gap between the lateral and dorsal stripes on the head and neck is yellow or orange. The arrow-snake keeps on sands, stony or clay slopes with rare shrubs, often found on mountains and salt marshes. Especially numerous in thickets of saxaul. The place of shelter is rodent burrows, cracks in the soil, piles of stones. In the same shelters, snakes hibernate, and also spend the hottest months (in the southern part of the range) in summer hibernation. The arrow-snake got its name for the extraordinary swiftness of its movements. For a crawling large snake, writes V. N. Shnitnikov, a person has to run with great tension, and she often manages to escape even in an open place. The movement of a large arrow-snake gives the impression that it is moving with the help of some hidden mechanism, and not by the forces of the animal itself - so much does the speed of movement correspond to the barely noticeable movements of the body that actually cause it. It seems that the snake, having straightened up, glides along the ground completely independently of itself. The swiftness of the movements of the snake's arrow gave rise to an old Turkmen legend that it can "suddenly kill people, horses, camels and mules, piercing their hearts with one jump." The snake arrow climbs beautifully and often escapes on the branches from the chase. Due to its protective coloration and thin body, it can be very difficult to detect it even among the rare branches of saxaul. On the branches, snakes also escape the heat of the day, since at some distance from the hot surface of the soil the temperature is much lower. The height of the jumps of a fast-moving arrow-snake reaches 30-40 cm. The captured animal vigorously tries to free itself, but bites relatively rarely. Taken in hand, the tensed muscles of the snake are unusual to the touch: it seems that an elastic wire is embedded in its very dense and thin body. It can lift the body vertically upwards by more than half of its length and stretch horizontally by 35-40 cm when weighed. Even in a calm state, resting or basking in the sun, the arrow-snake prefers to straighten the body rather than twist into a ball. The food of the arrow-snake is made up exclusively of lizards: round-headed, foot-and-mouth disease, agamas. She hunts by lying in wait or hiding her prey, and when the latter is close enough, she makes a swift, barely perceptible throw for the eye, wrapping several rings of her body around the victim. After the lizard is firmly grasped, poisonous teeth are put into action. With its mouth wide open, the snake bites the victim by the neck, tightly compresses the jaws and loosens its grip only when the resistance of the prey weakens. Paralysis from poison, even in large lizards, occurs within a few seconds after the bite. After that, the arrow-snake dissolves the rings and, having licked the prey, slowly swallows it. Small and young snakes often feed on large insects. The bite of an arrow-snake for large mammals and humans is completely harmless. Eggs in the amount of 2-6 pieces are laid by females in June - July, young ones hatch in August ...

Poisonous animals and plants of the USSR / B.N. Orlov, D.B. Gelashvili, A.K. Ibragimov. - M.: Higher. school, 1990. - 272 p.