Melanophidium wynaudense
Melanophidium wynaudense, commonly known as the Indian black earth snake, is a species of snake in the family Uropeltidae. The species is endemic to India. Geographic range M. wynaudense is found in the Western Ghats of southern India. Type locality: "Cherambady in the Wynaud [= Wayanad]". Description Beddome (1864: 180) described M. wynaudense as follows: "Scales round the body 15, round the neck 16 or 17; rostral scarcely produced back between the nasals; no supraorbital; muzzle more obtuse than in P. perrotteti; eye small; subcaudals 11 pairs; anal large, bifid; tail compressed; scales smooth, terminal spinose, tail ending in a single horny point. Colour bluish black, with broad white blotches on the belly, which become larger and more numerous towards the tail; tail uniform bluish black." Footnotes Further reading Beddome RH (1863). "Descriptions of New Species of the Family Uropeltidæ from Southern India, with Notes on other little-known Species". Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1863: 225-229 + Plates XXV-XXVII. Beddome RH (1863). "Further Notes upon the Snakes of the Madras Presidency; with some Descriptions of New Species". Madras Quart. J. Med. Sci. 6: 41-48. (Plectrurus wynaudensis, new species). [Reprint: (1940). J. Soc. Bibliogr. Nat. Sci., London 1 (10): 306-314.] Beddome RH