Painted Keelback Xenochrophis cerasogaster is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of Colubrid

Colubrid

A colubrid is a member of the snake family Colubridae. This broad classification of snakes includes about two-thirds of all snake species on earth. The earliest species of the snake family date back to the Oligocene epoch. With 304 genera and 1,938 species, Colubridae is the largest snake family...

 snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

 found in Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

, Nepal

Nepal

Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...

, Bangladesh

Bangladesh

Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...

 and India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 (Assam

Assam

Assam , also, rarely, Assam Valley and formerly the Assam Province , is a northeastern state of India and is one of the most culturally and geographically distinct regions of the country...

, Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

). This snake is also called the "Dark Bellied Marsh Snake."

Description

See snake scales

Snake scales

Snakes, like other reptiles, have a skin covered in scales. Snakes are entirely covered with scales or scutes of various shapes and sizes. Scales protect the body of the snake, aid it in locomotion, allow moisture to be retained within, alter the surface characteristics such as roughness to aid in...

for terminology

Head narrow, elongate, with angular canthus rostralis and slightly concave lores; eye moderate or rather small. Rostral once and one third to twice as broad as long; suture between the internasals nearly as long as that between the prefrontals; frontal much longer than its distance from the end of the snout, as long as the parietals; lorealas long as deep or a little longer than deep; one preocular; two or three postoculars and one or two sub-oculars ; temporals 2+2 or 2+3 ; upper labials 9, fourth (rarely fifth) entering the eye; 5 or 6 lower labials in contact with the anterior chin-shields, which are as long as the posterior or a little shorter. Scales strongly keeled, in 19 rows, ventrals 140-151; anal divided; subcaudals 60-70. Brown above, with or without darker spots and with a more or less distinct paler dorso-lateral band, lower parts cherry-red to purplish black, with a yellowband on each side extending irom the lips to the end of the tail. Total length 2 feet, tail 5.5 inches.