Boiga andamanensis

Appearance

The body of B. Andamanensis is long, thin, and laterally compressed, with smooth dorsal scales. Dorsally, the Andaman cat snake is pale reddish or greyish brown, uniform, or with a series of dark brown vertebral spots or thin cross-lines. There is dark colour usually on the scale edges.

The average adult total length (among them tail) is approximately 0.85 metres (2.8 ft), but it may grow to a total length of 1.49 metres (4.9 ft).

Range and habitat

B. Andamanensis is endemic to the Andaman islands of India. The Andaman cat snake is a forest species and is also frequently found in thatched roofs of houses. The species is endemic to the Andaman Islands.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet

B. Andamanensis is nocturnal and arboreal. It is occasionally seen on the ground searching for prey.

It is a rear-fanged snake and has a mild venom that can paralyze small prey. It preys mainly on geckos, other small lizards (especially lizards of the genus Calotes), and rodents, but will occasionally eat tree frogs and bats.

In crisis

Boiga andamanensis is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Boiga andamanensis, Wikidata item Q2908837. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.