Drepanoides anomalus
—
Amazon Egg-eating Snake
Also known as:
Black-collared Snake
Julio, the caretaker of Madre Selva, spotted this snake in a thicket of tree roots and quickly finagled it out. I took this photo the next morning.
This is one of three local species that look very similar, the other two being the Amazon Scarlet Snake (Pseudoboa coronata) and the young Mussurana (Clelia clelia). The best way to tell them apart involves counting scale rows, and in this case scale rows were indeed counted.
My Travelogues and Trip Lists page includes a complete list of the herps I saw in the wild on my 2016 MT Amazon Expeditions trip.
Printed references:
- Bartlett, R.D., and Bartlett, P. 2003. Reptiles and Amphibians of the Amazon: An Ecotourist's Guide
- Dixon, J. R. and Soini, P. 1986. The Reptiles of the Upper Amazon Basin, Iquitos Region, Peru
- Duellman, W.E. 2005. Cusco Amazónico: The Lives of Amphibians and Reptiles in an Amazonian Rainforest