As far as snakes go, the racer is in large found on the African and American continents, but racers also commonly found in the suburbs of India. These snakes are common enough that I should have written about racers earlier, but due to lack of photographs I wasn’t able to do so. Luckily my dearest friend Saleel Gharpure shared his photo with me for my blog post.

The Banded Racer Argyrogena fasciolata possesses white bands on it when young but the bands fade and become less obvious as it matures. Adults of this species end up entirely light or dark brown. The maximum size of these non-venomous snakes is 4-5ft and it is oviparous by nature, it lays 5-12 eggs between February and April. And as the name implies, they are very fast.

I have rescued these snakes a lot, many times on rescues these snakes disappear before I reach the rescue spot because of their speed. If they are in an open space and I try to go near them, I am sure they will disappear within seconds in front of my eyes. But, worryingly, that these snakes are slowly slowly declining in my my area It has been 8-9 months since I found this racer on a rescue, but I am sure I’ll encounter another of these magnificent creatures very soon.
Photo: saleel gharpure