Just 40 cm long and iridescent brown, Uropeltis Bhupathy is the latest addition to the snake fauna of the Western Ghats.

The snake, currently observed only in the forests of the Anaikatty hills in Tamil Nadu?s Coimbatore district, has been named Uropeltis bhupathyi, after the late herpetologist S. Bhupathy, for his contributions to the field.

The reptile belongs to a family of snakes found only in peninsular India and Sri Lanka. They are non-venomous, burrowing and mostly earthworm-eating, and are called shieldtails after the large, flat tips of their tails, which make them appear almost sliced off.

Researchers had seen this snake earlier during surveys, but it was wrongly identified as another more commonly-seen shieldtail, says researcher Jins V.J., who discovered the snake.

Mr. Jins has counted the minute body scales on its ventral or belly side — which is usually how such snakes are identified — and compared them to other similar-looking shieldtails across India. The new species had more than 200 scales - "this is its most characteristic distinguishing feature.?

A study announcing the discovery was published on May 1 in Zootaxa.

Threats to the new species include road traffic — the Anaikatty-Coimbatore State Highway passes through its habitat — and soil being extracted for brick manufacturing. The discovery takes the number of known species of shieldtails in India to 41. While India has more than 300 identified species of snakes at present, At present, there are 45 known species of shieldtail snakes in the world, of which 41 are endemic to India and 15 to Sri Lanka. The name ?shieldtail? comes from their heavily keeled tails that terminate in disk-like shields or multiple spines in most species. They are small sized snakes, typically 25 to 50 cm in length and live in loose soil among plant roots or under decaying vegetation. They are inoffensive, non-venomous, and easy-to-handle owing to their inability to bite because they have short head and mouth. They come in a variety of colors, mostly dark shades of grayish black/brown and feed on earthworms and arthropods.