KATHMANDU – In July 2022, Tujin Rai, an undergraduate biology student, saw a dead snake outside his home in Dhankuta in Nepal’s eastern hills. He was curious to identify it. Rai, who interns at the Kathmandu-based NGO Nature Conservation and Study Centre, posted the image of the snake on Facebook, where it was spotted by veteran herpetologist Karan Bahadur Shah. “Prof. Shah identified the snake as a lesser black krait (Bungarus lividus),” Rai, whose findings were published in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians, recently told Mongabay. “Prof. Shah told me that the snake had so far only been documented in Nepal’s plains,” Rai said, adding that he again encountered a juvenile of the same species on June 15, 2023, around the same location. The global conservation authority IUCN describes the lead-colored snake as “small, secretive, nocturnal and elapid” (having permanently erect fangs at the bottom of the mouth). Conservationists say these are characteristics that people are afraid of and lead to potential conflict with humans, especially as the snake is extremely venomous. A 2011 study documented a case of fatal envenoming caused by a lesser black krait bite in the Bhutanese refugee camp in eastern Nepal. According to the study, a 22-year-old woman, who was bitten by the snake, died after suffering a burning sensation in her body and respiratory distress due to paralysis. Kamal Devkota, a researcher specializing in snakes and not involved in the study, said that now that the snake has been described at higher altitudes, the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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