Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: 2024), over 300 occur in India (Aengals et al. 2018).We herein address the diversity of snakes in an isolated forest patch in the city of Guwahati, Assam, where anthropogenic activities like road construction, deforestation, and human encroachment have led to drastic declines in the wildlife populations.Covering an area of about 2.6 km 2 that includes a stream, some caves, rocky terrain, and patches of dense forest, Nilachal Hill is in the Kamrup Metropolitan District of Assam, India (26.16750, 91.71110), on the southern bank of the Brahmaputra River.Fringe areas support a developing commercial hub, with lodges, restaurants, apartments, hostels, and hospitals.During 53 morning (0900-1230 h) and evening (1600-2030 h) visits (8 person-hours each) from November 2021 to August 2023, we used visual encounter surveys to document snakes, actively searching under stones, fallen logs, trees, garbage dumps, near loose soil, streams, and along random forest trails.Snakes encountered during the study were disturbed as little as possible and photographed in the field.For identification, we used existing literature (Smith 1935(Smith , 1943;;Ahmed et al. 2009) and consulted the IUCN Red List database (IUCN 2024) to determine the conservation status of the species we encountered.We recorded 21 species of snakes in eight families and 18 genera (Table 1; Figs.12); 16 of those species were listed as being of Least Concern (LC), one species was Near Threatened (NT), one was Vulnerable (VU), and three species had yet to be evaluated (NE).Nilachal Hill lies in the city of Guwahati, and the diversity of snakes in Guwahati has been the subject of previous work.Purkayastha et al. (2011) reported 23 species of snakes from the city; Saikia (2005) reported 13 and Sengupta et al. (2016) reported 19 species of snakes from Deepor Beel; Purkayastha (2018) reported 28 species of snakes from Guwahati, and Purkayastha et al. (2020) reported 23 species of snakes from the Aamchang Wildlife Sanctuary, located on the eastern fringe of Guwahati.However, none of them reported the occurrence of Boiga siamensis, which was recorded during the present study.This highlights the importance of the Nilachal Snakes of Nilachal Hill, Assam, India
Source: Reptiles & Amphibians
Authors: Bijay Basfore, Trishna Das, Abhi Medhi
Institution: Bineswar Brahma Engineering College
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4405766147