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Sharma's Racer
Platyceps bholanathi
Platyceps bholanathi, also known as the Nagarjun Sagar racer, Nagarjunasagar racer, Nagarjuna racer, Bhola Nath's racer, or Sharma's racer, is a species of colubrid snake. It is found in peninsular India, in the Eastern Ghats and the Deccan Plateau, in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana. It is a rather recently described species, that was first discovered in 1976, in the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam by scientists of the Zoological Survey of India.
It is a diurnal, fast-moving, active snake, living among rock boulders. It feeds on lizards, small mammals, and birds.
From the article Platyceps bholanathi on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
Description
A slender snake; rich brown above with white, black-edged rounded or ovoid spots on the back; underside white. Scales: Supralabials 9; loreal 1, preocular 1-2, postocular 2, subpostocular 1 or absent, temporal 2+2 or 2+3; 19 mid body rows; ventral 201-212, anal divided; subcaudal 105-121, paired.
Range & habitat
This species is known from Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in Telangana, Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, Bellary in Karnataka and Gingee and Hosur in Tamil Nadu, essentially covering all of the rocky hillocks and outcrops in south India.
Wikipedia: “Distribution”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
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geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Platyceps bholanathi in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 540106.