Goa Herpetofauna

I just got back from Goa, and no, I didn’t visit any beaches. No, I didn’t go to any parties, and no, I didn’t even drink any Feni. I went for a herpetology educational trip organised by Nature India. You may be questioning my sanity, and you might question it even more, after you finish reading this, but I do hope this inspires you to look beyond the beaches of Goa and deep inside its jungles. It is only during the monsoons that one gets an opportunity to understand these often misunderstood herps- amphibians and reptiles.
Having been to herpetofauna haven, Amboli only weeks ago, my expectations for Goa were not high but after this trip, they surely will be the next time I visit.

After a one hour bus ride from Madgaon, our small group of nature enthusiasts made their way to ‘Nature’s Nest’, a quaint and rustically styled resort hidden behind dense foliage and heavy sheets of rain, situated at the base of the Western Ghats in Goa.

The rooms were spacious and comfortable. After a refreshing and sumptuous meal, we set out for our first trail.

Accompanied by inhouse expert naturalist, Omkar Dharwadkar, we were in search of the Hump-nosed pit viper, found southwards from Goa.

We didn’t have to go far to find this venomous snake. Actually we found it just inside our hotel campus beneath the leaf litter, right near the foot of an unsuspecting participant. 

Hump-nosed Pit Viper (Hypnale Hypnale)

The Hump-nosed pit viper is characterised by the presence of the hump as its self explanatory name suggests. With the signature triangular head of the viper, it has pits; heat sensitive receptors in the loreal region. A fascinating piece of information about this viper is that it uses its tail to attract prey. While it hides beneath the leaf litter, it exposes the white tip of its tail and shakes it to imitate a worm, thus enticing its prey. The Hump-nosed pit viper’s underside is many shades darker, so that it can effectively camouflage in leaf litter where it is usually found.

    A brave (or very stupid) little frog hopped right next to the snake, predator and prey united side by side, probably perceiving us humans as the larger threat.

  

Hopefully, the pit viper didn’t switch loyalties, once we were out of sight.

Next, we trekked up a hilly area in the Bhagwan Mahaveer sanctuary, in search of the Saw-scaled viper. In spite of being injured in an accident, Ramesh Zarmaker, naturalist and manager of Nature’s Nest, showed great professionalism, and accompanied us to the sanctuary. Hats off to Ramesh and Omkar who managed to find this well camouflaged, deadly specimen coiled underneath a rock atop a hilly area amidst heavy torrents of rain.

Saw Scaled Viper (Echis Carinatus)

Don’t be fooled by its small size. As they say, the best things do come in small packages even if it is high quality venom.

       The term ‘saw-scaled’ comes from the sound these vipers produce when they rub their dorsal scales against each other. They are extremely hard to spot due to their excellent camouflage, and small size. Most saw scaled vipers are live-bearing, but some populations in Africa are known to lay eggs.

       The saw scaled viper is one amongst the Big Four of India, responsible for causing the most snakebite cases. Their hemotoxic bites affect the blood and organs, causing organ degeneration and tissue damage.

Injury from such a bite is often very painful and can cause permanent damage and, in severe cases, death. However, these bites are mostly in self defence as these snakes often go in search of rodents/lizards into residential houses, and not with any other malicious purpose as is often imagined.

Having spent the morning in the company of two highly venomous snakes, with my internal organs in perfect working condition and my head still on my shoulders, there was a shift in my perspective towards snakes, and such other interesting things, like rocks.

Yes, rocks.

Ordinary pieces of stone had never been more fascinating to me, as they revealed a myriad of treasures that lay beneath them.

           Emperor Scorpion (Scorpiones) 

  Only 30-40 out of 2000 scorpion species have venom, which is capable of killing a human being. Scorpions have the ability to decrease their metabolism if food is scarce, to about one third the typical rate of arthropods, enabling them to survive on as little as a single insect over a year. The female scorpion carries the young on her back, until they are ready to live on their own. Scientists aren’t sure why, but scorpions are fluorescent under ultraviolet light.
Towards the end of the trail, we also spotted the lynx spider and the Indian gaur, the latter being only a few metres away and, thankfully separated from us by a mud wall. It was a splendid sight and such an experience to come up close to these animals on foot, will not be easily forgotten.

As darkness fell, the anticipation of the night trail rose.

As we began the night trail, we were greeted by a cacophony of sound from the cicadas. What a welcome sound it was, as opposed to the daily traffic and blaring horns we are so accustomed to! The vocal calls of Minervarya frogs added to the orchestra shortly after, posing stiff competition to the Typewriter frogs.
Our first sighting was the flying lizard, draco, followed by the praying mantis. Clearly disguised amongst leaves, the Praying Mantis can swivel its head nearly 180 degrees, and their legs are equipped with spikes for snaring their prey. An interesting fact of mating behaviour is that this insect will eat its mate after or even, during mating. Yet, this behaviour does not deter males from reproduction.

Praying Mantis (Mantis Religiosa)

The mantis was perched on the hinged gate leading into the sanctuary, perhaps praying for some good frog sightings for us, which was very effectively answered in any case.

The Amboli Bush Frog is a rare shrub frog endemic to the Western Ghats.

Amboli Bush Frog (Pseudophilautus Amboli)

Ornate Narrow mouthed Frog (Microhyla Ornata)

The beautifully patterned Ornate Narrow mouthed frog is endemic to the Western Ghats. Its loud vocal call belies its small size, and we heard this little guy way before we saw him. The females lay about several hundred eggs in rain pools of water. In this species, the eggs float on the surface, and the tadpoles are nearly invisible to avoid predator attention.

Malabar Gliding Tree Frog (Rhacophorus malabaricus)

This arboreal tree frog characterised by its dilated fingertips was a resplendent sighting in the rain. Endemic to the Western Ghats, they can smoothly glide like parachutes, about 10 metres in the air. Their breeding behaviour is very interesting as they only breed in trees above stagnant water. During the external fertilisation, the male grasps the front legs of the much bigger female, and beats them to form a gelatinous foam nest. When the eggs hatch after five days, the tadpoles drop into the stagnant rainwater below. When the breeding season is over, these frogs retreat high above into the forest canopies.

Besides the common tree frog, we also spotted the juvenile bull frog, and a couple of more red burrowing frogs. Amongst other species, we sighted a green vine snake, a spider feeding on a katydid, and stick insects.

Common Tree Frog (Polypedates Leucomystax)

Green Vine Snake

The Stick insect is a superb example of effective camouflage as it resembles the twigs amongst which it lives. They not only look like sticks, but act like them too. Like the praying mantis, the stick insect makes repetitive sideways movement, imitating vegetation in the wind.  

A cool fact about this insect is that it can shed and regenerate limbs to escape from predators. They vary in size to a record 13 inches found in a particular species in Borneo, Malaysia. The mating behaviour in this species is impressive due to the extraordinarily long pairing time, one species being coupled for a record 79 days at a time.

  

Two Stick Insects (Phasmatodea) Mating

 The next morning trail did not yield many sightings due to continuous heavy showers.

 However, it was compensated for by a mounting sense of adventure, as we trekked up rocky pathways, through gushing streams deep into the dense jungle.

Just as the weariness began to creep in, Omkar spotted a Malabar Pit Viper, coiled around a leafy branch, its brilliant scales glistening with drops of rain.

(Malabar Pit Viper) Trimeresurus Malabaricus

The Malabar pit viper is slow moving, but capable of fast strikes. Its venom causes pain and swelling amongst humans, but it subsides in a day or two. These snakes are mostly nocturnal preferring to find a cool spot during the day to bask in. They are by nature, ambush predators, and wait patiently for their prey to come rather than stalk them. This pit viper was still in the same position on our way back.

Malabar Pit Viper

Forest Calotes (Calotes Rouxii)

 We returned back to the campsite for some refreshments and delicious Konkani food, after which we encountered a surprise sighting near the dining area itself.

Travancore Wolf snake (Lycodon Travancoricus)

This Travancore wolf snake was rescued and brought to our resort, allowing us careful observation. It is known as the wolf snake due to the presence of elongated teeth like the canines a wolf would have, rather than fangs typical of most snakes. A key distinguishing factor between the wolf snake and the krait, is the colour of the rings. This wolf snake has yellowish rings while the krait has milky white.

After a hearty lunch, we headed off towards the highlight of the trip, Castle Rock. As we drove up to higher elevations, the temperatures cooled, engulfing us in fog and rain.

Unfortunately, this trail was crawling with leeches, but thankfully the sightings made up for the bites.  

During the trail, we saw some beautiful flowers dotting the landscape including Tutari (Rhampicarpa longiflora)-which blooms at night after 5 pm, and is a root parasite on grasses, Bladder wort (Utricularia)- an insectivorous plant which captures insects in a bladder like trap, Sita’s tears (Utricularia purpurascens), and the commonly found Balsum (Impatiens), amongst others.

 Loranthus

Loranthus is a genus of parasitic plants that grow strongly on ageing trees, and steal minerals, water, even blocking sunlight.

Green Vine Snake (Ahaetulla nasuta)

This was our second Green Vine Snake sighting.  This snake is exclusively arboreal and spends most of its time in trees.

The Green Vine Snake has a horizontal eye pupil as opposed to other snakes, and this difference sparked my curiosity to research it further. Besides it being a diurnal snake, the predatory behaviour is also a determining factor. The pupil improves an animal’s focus in the direction perpendicular to the slit. For the green vine snake, the horizontal pupil increases its focus in the vertical plane, allowing it to detect vertical movement, as it moves around to catch its prey, unlike the Malabar pit viper which is an ambush predator.

Forest Calotes (Calotes Rouxii)

       

 A peek into a little tank on the way revealed a bonus of three frogs, two of them being common toads, and the other, a bi-coloured frog.

Bi-coloured Frog (Clinotarsus curtipes)

   The Bi-coloured frog is endemic to the Western Ghats, India. Its underside is darker to help it camouflage effectively in leaf litter. This frog has a very toad like disposition. The tadpoles form dense and compact shoals in slow moving streams in forested areas. The adults may occasionally feign death to escape predators.

 For our last sighting, we stopped to watch a number of tarantulas, scuttling in and out of their holes sculpted inside the towering walls on either side of the road.

Tarantula (Theraphosidae)

The Tarantulas, or cat-legged spiders have large, hairy bodies, making them the stuff of nightmares. The mild venom of their bite is weaker than an average bee’s, and causes little more pain than a wasp’s sting. The name originates from the Italian town, Taranto.

Besides the tarantulas, the mountainous walls were crawling with a number of other interesting specimens like the Whipped Scorpion, and Scutigera.

As the tarantulas retreated into their holes, we also made our way back, a perfect end to an eventful day. 

After a good night’s sleep, the sun shone on our last morning, and the brilliantly coloured canopy birds came out calling. We spotted the Crimson sunbird, Brown-cheeked Fulvettas, Leafbird, Loren’s sunbird, Yellow-browed bulbul, Black-hooded oriole and Heart Spotted woodpecker, amongst others.

Amongst butterflies, we also spotted a wide variety including the Southern Bird Wing, Danaid Eggfly, Plum Judy, Striped Tiger, Blue Mormon, Blue Oakleaf, and the Bush brown.

 We appreciated a lot of lesser known fauna on our last morning trail, including a variety of fungus, like the Ear Pinnae Mushroom, Bracket fungus and a couple of other undescribed specimens.

Orange Mushroom

The blind snake was the last snake species we sighted. Completely harmless, it is often mistaken for an earthworm, except that it is not segmented.  

     

  Blind Snake (Ramphotyphlops braminus)

Thorny Crown Flower

Undescribed Spider

Millipede

The pleasant weather continued till the end of the trail, and we checked out of the hotel with a promise to return to this paradise.

This trip not only dissolved my fear, but also heightened my respect for these hereptofauna species that are often sidelined or derided. With many misconceptions resolved, I began to appreciate the immense beauty and awe these creatures exude, when we are fortunate enough to see them.

The tremendous biodiversity of the Western Ghats never fails to astonish me, and each visit leaves me to wonder about the many more indigenous species, which have not yet been discovered, and are already disappearing.

The Western Ghats is severely threatened by various developmental projects, and these wild treasures may be lost before we even know what they are. Humanity is linked to nature in unimaginable ways. With every extinct species, this complex network of interconnections is coming undone.

It is this natural beauty which brings us closer to something much bigger than us, something divine, which the human mind cannot yet fully comprehend, and this is reason enough to conserve it.  

Last but not the least, I’d like to thank Nature India. What sets this organisation apart is not just the extensive educational learning, but also the responsibility and respect with which the flora and fauna are treated.
I do hope this trip report inspires you to explore a different side of Goa, without its pristine beaches, and happening parties.  

August 16-19 2013