{"id":77388,"date":"2025-12-11T14:13:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T08:43:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=77388"},"modified":"2025-12-12T15:44:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T10:14:03","slug":"rhinophis-siruvaniensis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/rhinophis-siruvaniensis\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhinophis siruvaniensis"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Rhinophis siruvaniensis Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A new shieldtail species, Rhinophis siruvaniensis, has been described with the help of citizen scientists after it was found recently in the Siruvani Hills which fall in both Kerala and Tamil Nadu.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Rhinophis siruvaniensis<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a new species of <\/span><b>shieldtail snake.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was discovered in <\/span><b>Siruvani Hills<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, located in the <\/span><b>Western Ghats<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in <\/span><b>Kerala and Tamil Nadu.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A <\/span><b>shiny snake<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, R. siruvaniensis is <\/span><b>brownish black and creamy white<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in colour, with <\/span><b>bold dark blotches.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>tip of its tail<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is <\/span><b>dome-shaped.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Facts about Shieldtail Snakes<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shieldtails are a group of <\/span><b>small-sized, non-venomous snakes <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that <\/span><b>burrow in the soil<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>mostly live underground.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They belong to the Uropeltidae family of snakes and are <\/span><b>also called uropeltids.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They\u2019ve been <\/span><b>named shieldtails <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">because the <\/span><b>tip of their tails looks like a disc-shaped shield.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Distribution<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They are <\/span><b>endemic <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">to <\/span><b>India &amp; Sri Lanka.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\" aria-level=\"2\">In India, they are found in the <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/western-ghats\/\" target=\"_blank\"><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Western Ghats <\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and some parts of <\/span><b style=\"font-size: inherit;\">Peninsular India.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/india.mongabay.com\/2025\/12\/scientists-describe-a-new-species-of-burrowing-shieldtail-snake\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rhinophis siruvaniensis is a new species of shieldtail snake. Read more about Rhinophis siruvaniensis Species, Key Facts, Distribution, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":77403,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,22,23],"class_list":{"0":"post-77388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}