This species is found in the Amazon rainforest of South America, the Guianas, and Trinidad and Tobago. It is a moderate-sized snake attaining a size of about 70 cm (28 in) in length. It is fossorial and is rarely seen.[5] It is reported to be ovoviviparous and feeds on beetles, caecilians (burrowing legless amphibians), amphisbaenids or worm lizards (legless lizards), small fossorialsnakes, fish (particularly swamp eels), and frogs.[6] It forages for food on the ground, and sometimes in the water, at night.[7] It has a cylindrical body of uniform diameter and a very short tail; it is brightly banded in red and black and its reduced eyes lie beneath large head scales. It is considered to be the snake that most resembles the original and ancestral snake condition, such as a lizard-like skull.[8]
Modern classifications restrict the family to the South American pipe snake or false coral snake (Anilius scytale), with the previously included Asian genus Cylindrophis raised to a separate family, Cylindrophiidae. Anilius is not closely related to Asian pipesnakes. Instead, its closest relatives appear to be the neotropical Tropidophiidae.[9][10]
References
^ abcdMcDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T. 1999. Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Volume 1. Washington, District of Columbia: Herpetologists' League. 511 pp. ISBN1-893777-00-6 (series). ISBN1-893777-01-4 (volume).
Boos HEA. 2001. The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago. College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press. ISBN1-58544-116-3.
Martins M, Oliveira ME. 1999. Natural history of snakes in forests of the Manaus region, Central Amazonia, Brazil. Herpetological Natural History6: 78-150. PDFArchived 2013-10-09 at the Wayback Machine.
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