Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2016 | 8(11): 9375–9376

 

 

 

 

 

Road kills of the endemic snake Perrotet’s Shieldtail Plectrurus perrotetii, Dumeril, 1851 (Reptilia: Squamata: Uropeltidae) in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India

P. Santhoshkumar 1, P. Kannan 2, B. Ramakrishnan 3, A. Veeramani 4, A. Samson 5, S. Karthick 6, J. Leonaprincy 7, B. Nisha 8, N. Dineshkumar 9, A. Abinesh 10, U. Vigneshkumar 11 & P. Girikaran 12

1,2,7,8,9 Herpetology and Tribal Medicine, 3,5,6 Mammalogy and Forest Ecology, 10,11,12 MSc Wildlife Biology,

Department of Zoology and Wildlife Biology, Government Arts College, Udhagamandalam, The Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu 643002, India

4 Department of Zoology, Government Arts College (Autonomous) Kumbakonam, Thanjavur District, Tamil Nadu 612002, India

1 santhopalani@gmail.com (corresponding author), 2 perukannan@gmail.com, 3 bio.bramki@gmail.com, 4 wildveera@gmail.com, 5 kingvulture1786@gmail.com, 6 skarthick181@gmail.com, 7 leonaprincymsc@gmail.com, 8 nishagayu888@gmail.com, 9 dineshooty10@gmail.com, 10 wildvoyager1996@gmail.com, 11 vickyfalcon1996@gmail.com, 12 giriwildlife@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.2494.8.11.9375-9376

 

Editor: C. Srinivasulu, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. Date of publication: 26 September 2016 (online & print)

 

Manuscript details: Ms # 2494 | Received 06 January 2016 | Final received 31 August 2016 | Finally accepted 05 September 2016

 

Citation: Santhoshkumar, P., P. Kannan, B. Ramakrishnan, A. Veeramani, A. Samson, S. Karthick, J. Leonaprincy, B. Nisha, N. Dineshkumar, A. Abinesh, U. Vigneshkumar & P. Girikaran (2016). Road kills of the endemic snake Perrotet’s Shieldtail Plectrurus perrotetii Dumeril, 1851 (Reptilia: Squamata: Uropeltidae) in Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 8(11): 9375-9376; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.2494.8.11.9375-9376

 

Copyright: © Santhoshkumar et al. 2016. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

Funding: None.

 

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Dr. J. Ebanaser (Head) and department professors (Department of Zoology and Wildlife Biology, GAC, Ooty) for their help and support. The corresponding author special thanks to school friends (Karamadai Higher Secondary School, Karamadai, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu) for their encouragements.

 

 

 

 

The increase of vehicle density and road networks throughout the world has brought about insurmountable pressures on flora and fauna (Forman & Alexandra 1998; Spellerberg 1998). Snakes are the worst affected due to road networks in comparison to other animals. The major reason for the mortality of snakes is their slow movement on a smooth road as compared to other surfaces (Bonnet et al. 1999; Roe et al. 2007). The family Uropeltidae (Muller 1832) is one of the most poorly-understood families of small, burrowing snakes restricted to the Sri Lanka—Malabar sub region of southern Asia (Rajendran 1985). Perrotet’s shieldtail snake Plectrurus perrotetii is a snake endemic to the Western Ghats and is common in the Nilgiris and Anamalais between 1300m and 2000 m (Smith 1943; Rajendran 1985; Murthy 2001; Whitaker & Captain 2004; Vijayaraghavan & Ganesh 2011; Kannan 2014). According to Whitaker & Captain (2004) this species is viviparous. The present note provides data on the impact of roads on the endemic snake Plectrurus perrotetii in and around the Nilgiris.

The Present study is an offshoot of our long term study on the ecology of Xylophis perroteti using opportunistic survey method from June 2015 to August 2015. A total of 27 road kills of Plectrurus perrotetii were recorded in Emerald and its surrounding areas in the Nilgiris. Emerald area is located from southern side of the Nilgiri District and nearest to Avalanche Reserve Forest. Among the road kills, 14 of them were females, seven were males and six were juveniles. Species and sex was identified based on the literature (Smith 1943; Rajendran 1985; Whitaker & Captain 2004). Morphometric measurements were taken using an inch tape (LC = 1mm). The length of adult females ranged between 163mm and 292mm, adult males between 154mm and 263mm and that of juveniles ranged between 72mm and 112mm. Among the road kill female specimens of this species, it was observed that seven were gravid with fully developed young. Three to six developing young ones were observed and their lengths ranged between 40mm and 90mm (Image 1).

According to Wall (1919) and Smith (1943) this species generally gives birth to 3–6 young ones at a time between July and August. This present observation corroborates earlier studies on the number of young ones. A similar observation was noted by Ciesiolkiewicz et al. (2006) on grass snakes Natrix natrix that more juveniles were susceptible to road mortality especially during hatching and dispersal movement. Pragatheesh & Rajvanshi (2013) mentioned that road induced loss of dispersing juveniles and consequent isolation is likely to have impact upon the gene flow across the landscape. This present finding shows that road mortality has a major impact on the snake. This is a short time observation during the field visits. Therefore a more scientific study is required to predict the population level of impact of the snake in the Nilgiris.

 

 

 

 

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