Buff Striped Keelback

Fascinating facts about the Buff Striped Keelback

• When threatened, this snake inflates its body to flash bright interscale colours that are hidden at rest, a surprise display that can fool observers into thinking they’re seeing a baby cobra. The puff-up reveals vivid yellow and vermillion hues, illustrating a clever, low-cost visual bluff in the animal kingdom.
• In the breeding season the nape turns red, while the head stays yellow and the chin may be white or yellow, creating a striking color palette that signals readiness to mate. Such seasonal palette shifts act as honest signals in crowded lowland plains, helping mates find each other without a single sound.
• Females lay between 5 and 15 pure white eggs in underground burrows from May to September, then guard them until hatching. The newborns emerge at just 9-14 cm long and immediately hunt insects and tadpoles, highlighting a rapid transition from egg-care to independent foraging.
• Across South and Southeast Asia, from Pakistan to Indonesia, this snake thrives up to 2,000 m altitude and even hibernates 25-45 cm below soil in north India. Its ability to live in diverse climates and hide underground shows how a common, non-aggressive species can stay abundant while many others disappear.

At a glance

About the Buff Striped Keelback

The buff striped keelback (Amphiesma stolatum) glides through the lowland plains and hills of South and Southeast Asia with a sleek, olive-brown to gray body marked by two vivid yellow stripes that flare bright on the rear half. Its head, neck, and sides share the same muted hue, while a red nape appears during the breeding season and the chin and throat flash white or yellow. The snake’s dorsal scales are distinctly keeled, and its ventral side is a pale cream dotted with tiny black spots. Adults reach 50 to 80 cm, females generally outstretching the males, and the long, slender tail makes up nearly a quarter of the total length. When threatened the keelback inflates its body, exposing the hidden vermillion interscale colour of the erythrostictus morph, a startling display that can be mistaken for a cobra’s hood. This diurnal, non-venomous colubrid spends most of its day on land but will readily enter water, hunting a diet dominated by frogs and toads, supplemented by earthworms, small lizards, and rodents. Its keen eyes, framed by golden-flecked irises, scan the humid understory for the subtle movements of amphibian prey, while its forked black tongue samples the air for chemical cues. Reproduction unfolds during the warm months, with gravid females observed from April to August. Eggs, five to fifteen pure white ovals, are deposited in underground chambers between May and September, and the mother remains with the clutch until the hatchlings, only 9–14 cm long, emerge. The young are voracious insectivores, feeding on tadpoles, small toads and frogs, before transitioning to the adult diet. Seasonal rhythms dictate a period of aestivation in the hottest weather, a brief hibernation beneath grass roots in north India, and a resurgence with the rains, when the species becomes conspicuously abundant across its range.

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