The day when I purchased my first book of snakes and reptiles and saw the picture of Leith’s sand snake Psammophis leithi , I paused for a minute and stared at the picture for a while and I felt in love with this stripped reptilian fellow. Whenever I used to meet any new snake rescuer in my area, one thing which I used to tell every new rescuer I met “dude if you rescue a Leith’s sand snake, please call me” and finally I got to see one.

The Leith’s sand snake is a semi venomous or rear fanged snake found in India and luckily also found in my state Maharashtra. The reason I like this snake so much is because of its insane color pattern, It has a light brown slender body with dark brown or dark grey stripes on the upper body. If I describe the color pattern in my words I would rather say "a slender rope made of gold with 4 horizontal black stripes painted on it". These snakes mainly feed on rats, lizards and small birds. The maximum length of this snake is 80cm and it is oviparous by nature, lays 3-12 eggs.

I won't say that these snakes are the most beautiful snakes of India but I would definitely call this one “the attention seeker”.
Photo: Saleel Gharpure