Megatyphlops schlegelii info

[BushSnake]

The interesting thing for me is that, unlike many of your fossorial reptiles that prefer sandy soil, I normally find these in harder, but moist soil. This could be because the tunnels the ants use are probably stronger in that kind of soil, whereas the tunnels would collapse in sandy soil. I suspect these snakes make more use of existing tunnels than actually excavating tunnels themselves, although I don't doubt that they are capable of this. Filling up and blocking a complete tunnel might also be a great defensive method as that means only the head and tail is exposed to the worker ants. The head has a big strong rostral scale in front and the tail often terminates in a spike, so that sounds like some good defence from my point of view! But this is my own theory... so please don't quote me on this!

The general areas that I know of where M.shlegelii were found are all moist savanha, and the 2 specific spots I know of are not sandy at all. So in all likelihood M.schlegelii uses the same soil type as R.lalandei and A.bibronii...

[Wolf777]

Thanks I was thinking the same except for one specimen I found in a dried up riverbed all the others I have found so far were all found in moist savanha, the riverbed was also actually in moist savanha but the snake seemed to have come out of the soft river sand. Fascinating theory you have BS, I think you are onto something.

[Wolf777]

Do these snakes feed on earth worms?

[Wolf777]

Just a few pics I took. They were taken with a phone.



And a pic to show the sharp pointed tail. Please excuse my bad nail biting habit.

[Mongoose]

Hi Wolf - Megatyphlops are very intresting snakes!

The one pictured is M.mucruso.

[Wolf777]

Wow guess I need to brush up on my snakes a bit more, thanks for the clarification goose. Can you maybe give me a bit of additional info on them? How do you differenciate between the two because they look the same to me lol?

[Mongoose]

Mucruso have this striped appearance, and according to the locality(Northern Limpopo) schlegelli don't occur there.

I have only seen a few live ones, and I have found many DOR. I found about 13 DORS before I got a live one. Most I got were active just after dark, and I have found them active later as well. From Hoedspruit I have a record of one crossing the road in mid day. They seem to tollerate all soils.

BS has given you a pretty good description

[Wolf777]

According to Johan Marais' "A complete guide to the snakes of Southern Africa" they do occur here, and they do come in a striped appearance, but im not gonna argue with you because your alot more clued up than I am. So the blotched ones are schlegelli? I've also come across a few of them before.

[BushSnake]

There was a photo of a M.schegelii on the SANparks forum not too long ago, and judging from the photo that one was also crossing the road during daylight hours. Seems like these snakes are suicidal

BTW - if this one is from near Giyane it might be the most southern record of the species. If I am not mistaken, the subspecies of M.schlegelii were split into seperate species recently when the genus Megatyphlops was described, which may cause some confusion. From the SARCA distribution maps it looks like both species occur near Giyane, although the M.mucroso would still be a good record!

Have you been able to get this one feeding, and if so, on what?

[Mongoose]

Well I may be wrong. As far as my understanding goes, schlegelli does not come in a striped phase like this.

Ive only seen one mucruso, which came from Mozambque, and looked very much like this - Head shape and all.

BS - Only mucruso has been elevated to its own species. There is still M.s.schlegelli and M.s.petersii

Try feeding it crickets..

[Wolf777]

Thanks for the info. All of the Megatyphlops i've found come from Giyani except for one I found in Hoedspruit though. They do seem to be alot more abuntant in surfacing this year. The most findings are dors, wonder what they're doing on the roads.
Unfortunately not, I tried ant eggs, termites and even earthworms but to no avail so I released him. Wil try harder next time, when I come across another one.

[Bushviper]

I caught one in the Kruger Park. Yes I know you are supposed to stay in your car and not scoop animals off the road ! It was massive and I took some photos and dropped it off on the other side of the road. This was at about 16h00 on a sunny day and she was trying to cross a hot tar road. Not what I would have expected from these snakes.

These are the only snakes that I have seen that can be slender in front with a huge last third of the body. That one had a "bum like a broomstick handle" that why I am assuming it was female.

[Wolf777]

Will you please post the pics bv?