Trinket Snakes and Their Treasured Personal Space

It’s just after sundown, and light is all but gone. Walking down a mud path through our fruit orchard, I can see a twig that looks exactly like a snake, except that it is incredibly rigid and seems scrunched up. I get closer and see that it is a trinket snake that has stiffened up in its characteristic way, possibly, to avoid detection. It was probably waiting for me to walk past. I did. The snake continued on its way, probably heading out for a night of hunting or looking for a mate.

Adaptive beauties

The trinket snake (Coelognathus helena) is one of the most beneficial snakes we could have in our backyards. It is harmless, feeds on a wide variety of prey, including a large proportion of rodents and is one of those snakes that is always a joy to glimpse. So pleasing to the eye and elegant is this snake that when the French zoologist Francois Marie Daudin described the species to science in the early 1800s, he is believed to have named it after the legendary beauty Helen of Troy. I believe this snake carries that mantle perfectly.

Fortunately, in many cities and towns around the country, trinket snakes are still not rare, thanks to how adaptive they are. They seem to be able to make themselves at home in a wide variety of habitats. I’ve found these snakes in all kinds of places- beneath wood and building materials, in piles of leaf litter and vegetation, inside homes and offices, out in pristine forests, in manure heaps, and in numerous other very diverse locations. Any space that offers them enough cover and security, along with a healthy water supply and prey like small rodents, lizards, and amphibians, is suitable. They are commonly seen in granaries, warehouses and other storage spaces when items are being moved around. 

The subspecies

There are three subspecies known from India. The most common and widespread is the common trinket snake (Coelognathus helena helena), found through most of mainland India except the Western Ghats, Northeast India, and the Himalayas. The second is the montane trinket snake (Coelognathus helena monticollaris), known throughout the Western Ghats. This subspecies is the largest of the three and, according to many snake enthusiasts, also the most beautiful. It is certainly more intricately marked than the other two subspecies. The final and most recently described subspecies is from Odisha — Coelognathus helena nigriangularis. This was only described in 2016. Not much is known about this new kid on the block, and it still doesn’t have a common name. But, like its two counterparts, it holds Helen of Troy’s legacy with grace.

Mating game

Trinket snakes mate from late December into January. One might find numerous males in the vicinity of a single female. So far, there have been no reports of any male combat. So, we don’t know if there is a selection process or whether it is just luck of the draw determining which male gets to mate with her. In February or March, she stops feeding for a couple of weeks and looks for a rotting log, compost heap, termite mound, or similar location to lay 2-15 long, cylindrical eggs. She then continues with her life, building up reserves and feeding frequently to get back in shape.

Growing pains

If she has chosen a good place, the eggs will safely go through their 50-70 day incubation before they “pip”, which is what the initial tearing of the eggshell is called. Snakes that hatch out of eggs are equipped with a small “egg tooth” that helps them slash against the inside of their leathery eggshells and rip through. These little neonates will often spend up to a day (sometimes longer) with only their snouts sticking out of the tiny opening, drawing their first breaths of air outside the eggs while absorbing any remaining yolk. Once done, they leave their natural incubator and head into the world to begin their lives.

Baby trinket snakes are voracious eaters that consume soft-bodied insects like crickets, cockroaches, froglets, baby lizards, and newborn field mice. They also grow rapidly and shed their skins frequently. In captivity, I’ve seen these newborns double their length in less than two months and shed their skins every 10-15 days for the first few months. In the first year, they grow from their birth length of about 8-10 cm to about 30-40 cm.

They need to grow fast to increase their chances of survival. At birth, they can be eaten by almost everything around them: frogs, lizards, small mammals, and even insects. I once saw a baby trinket snake being eaten by a huntsman spider and know of instances where large geckos and scorpions have eaten these little noodles. It truly is a big, bad world for them until they grow larger than many of their early predators.

All bark, little bite

The trinket snake is a “typical” snake. It hasn’t evolved any unique forms of hunting, camouflage, or defence. However, like many of its close relatives, it will respond to threats by rearing the first half of its body off the ground, coiling it back into an “S” shape and gaping widely. It will also strike vehemently but often not hit the target. It’s more of a ruse to chase away an attacker. It’s all bark with hardly any bite. Even if it were to make contact, there is precious little that it could do to a human aside from a few puncture marks. 

Harassed by humans

This defence display might hold the snake in good stead when it comes to warding off small predators like cats and birds, but it seems to have the opposite effect on photographers. Because of how sensational this snake looks in its defensive pose, it has become a hot favourite with photographers. The fact that the snake is also harmless doesn’t do it any good, either. These snakes are made to “perform” and hold this posture for ages, often over an hour, when exposed to paparazzi with flashes going off and all forms of stressful stimuli around. Unfortunately, these images are often met with awe and adulation. This trend, unfortunately, doesn’t seem to be decreasing, and snakes with any form of defence display are constantly antagonised for great lengths of time to get these visuals. Vine snakes gaping, cobras hooding up, saw-scaled vipers sawing, and many other species are subjected to this treatment.

It would be labelled as cruelty if we did this to a mammal or a bird. Unfortunately, snakes aren’t given the same level of empathy. Over the last decade, our relationship with snakes has shifted from abject fear to callous showmanship and daredevilry. If we were to give snakes a chance and take the time and patience to get to know them in their wild, natural spaces, we’d find there is so much more to these enigmatic and elusive animals.

Photo source (juvenile), (montane trinket snake)