Morphological identification of the whizzling sand snake: <i>Psammophis sibilans</i> in Zaria, Northwestern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Despite extensive research on snakes, although subject to some variation and ignored by many authors, scarce information is available on the morphology of Psammophis Sibilans. Objectives: This research aimed to study the morphological characterization of Psammophis Sibilans in Zaria, Northwestern Nigeria, as a basis for its morphological identification which may be extrapolated or used as baseline data to show the reliability of scale count in species determination of Psammophis Sibilans. Methods: Active capture methods were used on free-range snakes and scales were counted to distinguish between the families, generic and specific levels. Results: The result showed that on the head shield, the loreal [1.0±0.00], pre-nasal[2.0±0.00], internasal[2.0±0.00],preocular[4.0±0.00],supraocular[2.0±0.00],frontal[1.0±0.00], parietal[2.0±0.00] were all the same for all the population studied (n = 20). The dorsal scale [18.00±0.00], and anal plate [1.00±0.00] were also the same for all the snakes studied while the ventral scales [173±2.83], and tail scales [191.30±1.76] showed significant differences within the group. For the zoometric parameters, the body length [85.33±0.44], mid-circumference [7.40±0.10], head length [3.50±0.29], and tail length [32.17±0.17] all showed significant differences within and between the population except for the head width [1.00±0.00]. In conclusion: The head shields are more reliable in the identification of Psamophis sibilans than the zoometric parameters studied, except for the head width. We also discovered a significant variation in the loreal head shield which was just one for all the population studied as opposed to studies from Egypt and Ethiopia where a range of one to two was reported.