Heads and Tails: The Snake and the Lizard

Pankil Desai recounts a most amazing and suspenseful encounter between a Green Vine Snake and a Calotes lizard


It was a regular sunny day and I was in my hostel room at the National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal. At around 11:30, I got a call from an unknown number informing me of a snake spotted nearby. It was not new for me to get such a call. I had volunteered with the Gujarat Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GSPCA) earlier and many people knew that I rescue snakes from human-reptile conflict zones. Since the snake was in the open, I carried my camera hoping to capture some nice portraits.


I was delighted to see it was a Common Vine Snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) -- it was the first time I was seeing an adult up close. Going closer I saw that it was holding a Garden Lizard (Calotes versicolor) by the neck. 

Trying to capture the scenario from all possible angles, I tried to get as close as possible to the snake without disturbing it. Under no circumstances did I want it to abandon its prey. I dispensed with my kit lens and put on a 28-135 mm lens to get better close-up shots without the risk of scaring away the snake.

I wondered why the snake had not yet started swallowing the lizard though its prey had stopped moving for the last ten minutes. Curious, I carefully moved some twigs for a better look. I was amazed at what I saw. The snake had a firm grip round the lizard’s neck; at the same time the lizard was holding on to the Vine Snake’s tail. I had never before seen anything like that!

The snake desperately tried to free its tail; at the same time it tried not to loosen its grip on the lizard. I think the lizard was very much dead by this time but its jaw muscles had contracted in its bite and remained so even in death. The snake had even started to bleed from the bite wound inflicted by the lizard. The struggle to release its tail from the lizard’s mouth went on for over one and a half hours. 

Finally, after a great struggle, the snake freed its tail and pulled the kill into the nearby bushes to enjoy a well-earned and much-deserved meal. 

Pankil Desai is an engineer with Linde engineering in Vadodara, Gujarat. After his BE, he completed his M Tech from National Institute of Technology, Karnataka in Surathkal, near Mangalore. During a year's break between degrees he volunteered for the Gujarat Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (GSPCA). His work included feeding injured birds and animals, administering basic healthcare, as well as rescuing reptiles from human conflict zones and releasing them back into the wild. During his stint there, he honed his affection for snakes and developed an interest in photographing them.  

Text and photos: Pankil Desai 
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Encounter: Kashmir Rock Agama

At 6,000 feet oxygen isn't as easy to aspire as I'd like. My lungs labour to adapt subcontinental lethargy to the punishing demands of altitude, and for a while I am oblivious to the spectacular Himalayan scenery drifting by in a sweat-soaked blur only furlongs away from my fumbling feet. As I acclimate, I feel the gentle breeze cool the sweat upon my skin, which tans slowly in the ultraviolet ray-laden sunlight.

Male (front) and female Kashmir Agamas soak up the sun

As the miasma clears, I am alerted to rustles in the grass that only reptiles can make. I hope for herpetologist's luck to chance upon Himalayan Pit Vipers, but none come my way. Sahastra and I begin our slow ascent towards Deoriya Tal from the roadhead at Sari (a village mostly uncharted except by distributors of gutkha, bottled water and kurkure) in Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand. Minutes into our climb, we notice great fat lizards basking on the rough walls of gneiss. 


It is past nine on a warm day by Himalayan standards. But perhaps no other creature enjoys the sunshine more flamboyantly than the Kashmir Rock Agama (Laudakia tuberculata). As the rocks warm up and heat waves distort the horizon, they arrive like tourists to a beach, falling over each other as they squabble for the best spot to soak up the sun. Like all reptiles, they are "cold-blooded", in that they have limited physiological resources to maintain a constant body temperature essential for metabolism. Therefore, they depend on external sources for warmth, and the sun (now available abundantly after a protracted and wayward monsoon) is the best source of it.  

A large male at the end of the breeding season shows only the bright blue limbs

Despite not being morning persons as such, their sluggishness evaporates as they bask. Drunk on sun, they grow perky and dart energetically among the stones. Their slate-grey bodies, which offer a fitting camouflage among the blue-green chips of rock, liven up with activated pigments. When young both sexes are stippled with bright blue spots, which are replaced with patches of pigmented skin as they age. The males' forelimbs and hind-limbs darken from pale blue-gray to brilliant azure and breeding males can acquire vibrant shades of purple, yellow and orange on the flanks and throat patches. The markings on the smaller females also become accentuated during the breeding season, which lasts typically from May to August. 

Juvenile Kashmir Rock Agamas have spotted skin 

The Kashmir Rock Agama occurs commonly at lower elevations in the Western Himalayas, which includes mountainous regions in northern Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Kashmir. Outside of India, they occur in Pakistan and Afghanistan. 


We were lucky to catch the lizards as they trooped out in large numbers from their hiding places in rock crevices to welcome the day. Some of them breakfasted on ants and small winged insects. Now and then an agama would choose a young bud or flower of the introduced Morning Glory, and make a quick meal of it. Some degree of vegetarianism has been widely documented in many agamid lizards, which are known to be omnivorous throughout the year. Breeding occurs in summer, when protein-rich insect food is widely available.

An adult makes a meal of a flower bud

As we ascended to the cool oak forest that skirts the beautiful lake of Deoriya Tal, we no longer saw the lizards. For the next two weeks our trek would take us to higher altitudes that were inhospitable for reptiles in late autumn. On our way through the foothills after our sojourn in the mountains, the Kashmir Rock Agamas were there to welcome us back. 


Text and photos by Beej

Encounter - Draco dussumieri, master of camouflage

I came across this miracle of nature towards the fag end of my supposedly "spend-time-with-family" trip to BR Hills. At the Jungle Lodges camp, I was about to return to my room after breakfast when our safari jeep driver called out to me. He pointed to something on a tree, saying it was a Southern Flying Lizard (Draco dussumieri).

Can you spot the lizard?

Well, I looked at four tree trunks over and over for a couple of minutes before I could spot it. There it sat on the tree trunk closest to me, and there was absolutely no way I would have spotted it had it not been pointed out. 


On the dull, ash-brown coloured trunk, interspersed with mottled lichen patches, I could make out a basilisk foot... As my eyes traced out the borders, I could slowly spot the other leg, the body and the tail. The head was the toughest to decipher from the background.

And now?

I changed my vantage point and tried a lateral perspective but I was amazed to find that so pressed was the lizard to the trunk that barely an outline was visible that would betray its presence. I waited to see if it would display its marvellous tree-to-tree glide, without luck. But in the end I considered myself lucky to have had such a good look at this amazing reptile!


Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan


Further reading:
Southern Flying Lizard on Wikipedia and the Reptile Database

Crocodile tears... on IBN blogs

Couldn't take it any more... I have vented my angst over the reportage of the gharial crisis on IBN blogs. Here's the text:

Curious how the stuff of Animal Planet becomes a mainstream media issue and everyone in the animal kingdom a spokesperson for it.

First, it was the tiger - when the Sariska poaching incident came up, our friends in the media announced doomsday for the big cat. Sorry, even before that it was the elephant - Veerappan and his ivory oligarchy won Jumbo a number of page-one anchors.

And then we forgot about them.

Now, because tigers are so last year and elephants scarcely a blip on the radar, media melancholia has shifted to the knob-nosed, fish-eating crocodilian we know as the Gharial.

Read the full post here