When a snake lover imagines seeing a cat snake, he or she probably expects to see a thin snake on a tree with beautiful color pattern and vertical eye pupils. That was my expectation when my friend Riyaz Khoja called me up and said, "Sachin, I have rescued a Forsten’s cat snake! Come to my place right away!"

I accelerated my bike toward Riyaz’s house and was trying to picture the cat snake while on the way. I had never seen a Forsten’s cat snake, boiga forsteni, so even I was expecting a thin cat snake with a length of 3-4 ft.

But when I reached his place and saw the snake I was like, "OMG!!! Bro, are you serious? This is a species of cat snake, are they really so big?"

The size of that cat snake was 6 ft, and it was fat like a rat snake. It had a triangular body like a cat snake with vertical eye pupils and rest of the characteristics of the cat snake family.

That happened three years ago, and I still remember each and every moment of that beautiful scenario. After that I came across many species of cat snakes but never found any of them as big as a Frsten’s cat snake. I would definitely call this snake "the boss of the serpentine cats."

Photo: Riyaz Khoja