Common Vine Snake
Long-nosed whip snakes, the common vine snakes are solitary critters that are diurnal (active during the day). During the night these snake species sleep hidden among the foliage or periodically in a cavity that caters to shelter from predators. These snakes are slow-moving and live in trees. They rely on camouflaging in foliage as a vine and hunt using their binocular vision. The snake stretches its body when disturbed to display a black and white scale marking. Moreover, they may open their mouth to show threat and point their head in the direction of the discerned threat. The scientific name of a common vine snake is 'Ahaetulla' in Sinhala meaning 'eye plucker'. They gained this name, and similar ones in Tamil and Indian vernaculars, because of their tendency of staring and striking at the eyes when picked up. There is also a belief that these snake species can blind their human victims.
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Common Vine Snake Scientific Description
Common Vine Snake Threat
This snake species is a mildly venomous tree snake inhabiting South and Southeast Asia. A common vine snake has a pointed snout and extremely slender body. They are either bright green or pale brownish in color; the skin between the scales is white and black on the upper part of the body that looks striped when distended. In addition, there is a yellow line along each side of the lower body surface.
Common Vine Snake Distribution
A Common vine snake is found in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam. They live in low shrubs, bushes and trees in lowland forest terrain, especially near streams. They are also most commonly found near human settlements.
Common Vine Snake Geography
Refer to the below table for elaborated information on common vine snakes geography:-
Common Vine Snake Diet and Nutrition
Common vine snakes are carnivores’ animals and feed primarily on frogs and lizards; however, they may also consume rodents, small birds, nestlings and small snakes.
Common Vine Snake Mating Habits
The reproduction season for common vine snakes begins at early summer. Their age to attain independence is from birth as they embrace a Precocial developmental lifestyle meaning that (young are comparatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth). Baby vine Snakes are referred to as snakelets.
The mating season begins in early summer. They are viviparous, giving birth to young that develop within the body of the mother, encapsulated within the egg membrane. The young are born fully grown and begin hunting soon after birth.
Common Vine Snake Population number
Currently, The Common vine snake population number is unknown from open sources, thus their population status is not evaluated. With respect to population threats, there are presently no major threats to this species.
Common Vine Snake Conservation Status
Conservation status of common vine snakes has not been evaluated.
Classification of Vine Snake
There are two subspecies of vine snakes:-
Thelotornis capensis capensis
Thelotornis capensis oatesii
There also exists an Eastern vine snake (Thelotornis mossambicans).
Vine snakes are slender in build and can reach a length of up to 5feet. They prefer to remain arboreal (residing in trees, bushes and shrubs). Their cryptic coloration supports them extremely in camouflaging and thus makes them highly difficult to detect. Their coloration makes them appear like a tree branch or twig. Gender can be distinguished apart by the tails. The males have evidently longer tails. The base of the tongue is red and has a black forked end. Food includes frogs, lizards and chameleons.
Vine snakes are oviparous meaning that the female lays a clutch of eggs, as many as a dozen and a half in a clutch.
Green Vine Snake
Green Vine Snake (Latin name Oxybelis fulgidus) is a long-nosed whip snake which belongs to the colubrid family. This snake emerges from Central and South America, where it is hugely distributed. Ahaetulla nasuta is a snake with a similar name - green vine snake - but it comes from another genus and varies from American species in color, behavior and habitat type where it can be found. Green vine snake habitats in tropical rainforests and lives among dense branches of the trees. This snake is hugely distributed and profuse in its native habitat. Luckily, it is not on the list of endangered animals.
Green Vine Snake Physical Appearance
This slow-moving snake can grow up to approximately 5 feet in length and can easily pass for a vine on a tree, credits to the outstanding camouflage rendered by its color and flat leaf-shaped head. When the snake feels in danger, it will have its mouth wide, open, expand its neck, and showcase black-and-white scale markings.
Vine snakes are back-fanged, stating that the fangs are positioned towards the back of the mouth. The well-recognized and much feared boomslang (Dispholidus typus) is also back-fanged. Both these species are extremely menacing as their venoms are greatly toxic and known to deliver fatal bites. The venom of the vine snake is haemostasis, preventing blood clotting and finally inducing all the internal organs of its prey to bleed abundantly. Sadly for victims, there is no anti venom available for the vine snake. A back-fanged snake must warrant a really good grip on its prey in order to inject its venom, unlike a front-fanged snake where the bite is far easier because of the positioning of the fangs.
Green Vine Snake Habitat and Distribution
The green vine snake is most commonly found in India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Vietnam. This species of snake displays hypnotic yellow eyes with a horizontal black pupil, in contrast to its namesake cousin Oxybelis fulgidus with round pupils commonly found in Central and South America. In India it is found almost across the country.
Green Vine Snake Threat
Natal green snakes are almost harmless to humans. They can sometimes be mistaken for green mambas (Dendroaspis angusticeps).Younger snakes are periodically darkly barred on the one third of the upper body. Green vine snake is minutely venomous. Bite of green venom snake is not lethal to man. It generally causes little numbness or tingling sensation, but it may periodically trigger severe allergic reactions.
Green snakes are pro climbers and can move swiftly between branches when threatened or interfered. In spite of amazing camouflage, it is a favorite food source for vine snakes. In turn it enjoys feeding on frogs and geckos.
Similar to the vine snake, green snakes are oviparous, the females laying up to 14 eggs in a clutch. If a person is bitten by a snake, a viable aid is to try and determine the snake, or at least click shot the snake for expert identification.
Quick Green Vine Snake Facts
Green vine snakes can reach up to 5 feet in length while their body is only 0.79 inches in diameter.
It is bright green on the upper part of the body and yellowish green on the bottom.
It possesses a pointed head with a big mouth and long green tongue.
Green vine snake has golden eyes and round pupils.
It has two large teeth at the back side of the mouth. Venom is not delivered instantly. Snake needs to chew the victim to prompt the release of the venom.
It has keeled scales (divided in 17 rows) on the dorsal side of the body.
Green vine snakes are arboreal animals (spend their life in the trees).
Some green vine snakes are also specialized to feed on hummingbirds and they use surprise elements to capture them while they suck nectar from the flowers.
Green vine snake relies on camouflage when it hunts the prey. Thin, Elongated green body looks like a vine, while a pointed head mimics leaves.
Green vine snakes utilize a prehensile tail to have a grip on the branches while they hunt the prey.
In most snake species, eyes work separately one from another. However, the eyes of the green vine work together, concentrating on the same image. This type of vision is referred to as binocular and it is typical for humans. Using binocular vision, they can locate prey easily.
Mexican Vine Snake (Oxybelis Aeneus)
The Mexican vine snake, also known as Brown vine snake, is a very slender built snake that essentially gets 3 to 6 feet long. It consists of a pointed snout and the head length is approximately three to four times its width. They are experts at camouflage. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum consists of a small one on exhibit in the reptile room.
Asian vine snakes are rear-fanged colubrid snakes, known as opisthoglyphous. Their fangs are not hollow and the venom originates from a gland that swiftly drips down the fangs. Because of their penchant for reptile and amphibian prey, they are troublesome to keep in captivity.
FAQs on Vine Snake
1. What type of animal is a vine snake?
Answer: Asian vine snakes are species of snakes whose population is often found in Asia, thus they are also known as Asian vine snakes. The Asian vine snakes are most commonly bright green in color! The Green vine snakes come under the division of reptiles and belong to the Ahaetulla genus. A vine snake lives in different Asian countries and that’s how they earned their name called Asian vine snakes. For example, they can be found in India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam. Whereas, the African vine snake is found in different countries in Africa. The habitat of the green Asian vine snake species involves lowland bushes, shrubs as well as trees in forests and terrains. They are also spotted near streams.
2. How long does a vine snake live?
Answer: The lifespan of this small snake species relies on the natural environment they reside in. In the case of both the green vine snake as well as the brown vine snake, they can live up to 15 or more years in the wild. These snake species are solitary snakes that prefer to live alone.
Vine snakes are often described as unappealing but the species are quite small in size which can make them look less scary than other snakes.
3. How fast can a vine snake move?
Answer: As a green vine snake generally lives on trees. The species is able to glide on and swiftly between the trees pretty fast in order to seize their prey. When comparing these green vine snakes with other species of snakes with respect to their size and distribution, these vine snakes are possibly going to lose! They are quite small in size, somewhat around 75 inches in length.
4. What are the names of male and female snake species?
Answer: There are no particular names for male and female green vine snakes but there are a whole lot of other names by which these snakes are known, including the long-nosed whip snake, the Asian vine snake, the Sri Lankan green vine snake, and the Mexican Vine Snake or Brown Vine Snake.
5. Are vine snakes aggressive?
Answer: At times, Asian vine snakes are pretty aggressive, but their aggression mostly relies on the situation. They are most aggressive when facing any type of threat or if there is prey to catch.
