Oriental Ratsnake interrupted while dining
Since people seemed to like stories . . . I was in our cabin during the day at Chitwan NP, probably trying to figure out some bird ID. Suddenly there was a commotion out in the garden and I ran out to calls of "snake, snake" grabbing my camera. Sure enough, they had found a snake, which as I looked at him and got off a few photos, I noticed that it was in the middle of eating a frog it had killed. As several of us stood there, the snake stopped in the middle of swallowing the frog and looked up at us. The expression of its face (as seen here) seemed to be showing that it was thinking over whether to be safe (i.e., spit out the frog and flee from these big dangerous humans) or satisfied (finish swallowing the frog and get its dinner, but risk that the humans would harm it which it would find harder to avoid being full of fresh frog). It made the nomally wise choice and went fror safety - spit out the frog and disappeared beneath the roots of a tree. I felt horrible that we may have cost it its dinner, so I was very relieved that when we cam back an hour later, the frog was gone. Hopefully the snake had returned an finally gotten its well deserved meal!

''Ptyas mucosa'', commonly known as the oriental ratsnake, Indian rat snake, 'darash' or ''dhaman'', is a common species of colubrid snake found in parts of South and Southeast Asia. Dhamans are large snakes, growing to 2 m and occasionally even to 3 m . Their colour varies from pale browns in dry regions to nearly black in moist forest areas. Dhamans are diurnal, semi-arboreal, non-venomous, and fast-moving. Dhamans eat a variety of prey and are frequently found in urban areas where rodents thrive.
comments (7)
Still a wonderful find though, great photo, and a country intro. Posted 7 years ago
The second part is easy, first part...not so much :) Posted 7 years ago