# Red naped snake found in NT



## n3xia (Apr 5, 2013)

My workmate found one of these in her driveway at Noonamah, 40 mins south of Darwin last night. Seems like their distribution is currently thought to be the east coast only.... hmmm. Anyone got an idea who I should tell about this? Is there a govt body or something where you can report snake sightings to researchers etc? She has a photo if they need to ID it, but she doesn't want me to post it here.

Edit: Just realised it's probably the orange-naped snake, which is found in the NT... never mind


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## Barrett (Apr 5, 2013)

Is your workmate sure it is a Furina diadema and not a Furina ornata? They look very similar and the orange naped snake lives throughout Northern Territory. Do you have any photos of the snake?


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## GeckPhotographer (Apr 5, 2013)




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## n3xia (Apr 5, 2013)

Barrett said:


> Is your workmate sure it is a Furina diadema and not a Furina ornata? They look very similar and the orange naped snake lives throughout Northern Territory. Do you have any photos of the snake?


Yeah I asked to upload it here but she didn't want me to. Sorry, it kind of makes my post a waste of time now  It probably is an orange-naped snake now that I've looked it up, yeah. I thought it looked orange before she called it a red-naped snake.


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## Bluetongue1 (Apr 8, 2013)

This might help to persuade the lovely lady…
The two species are extremely alike and it is not surprising that she would confuse them. The essential difference is that with _F. diadema_ the nape marking is widest in the middle and narrows markedly at each end. While with _F. ornata_ the nape marking is much more of a band that is approximately the same width throughout. If the snake is longer than 40 cm than it is _F.ornata_. Both can have 15 scales around the mid-body but F. ornate may also have 17 mid-body scales.

Get her to check out the following pages on the web. I am certain she will appreciate discovering the existence of this amazing resource if nothing else…
Red-naped snake (Furina diadema) at the Australian Reptile Online Database | AROD.com.au
Orange-naped snake (Furina ornata) at the Australian Reptile Online Database | AROD.com.au

Blue


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## Bushman (Apr 9, 2013)

I can confirm that it's an Orange-naped Snake _(Furina ornata_) based on the fact that the orange-red blotch on the nape is not completely enclosed by black (vs completely enclosed in the Red-naped Snake (_Furina diadema_).
This is a key identifying feature that can be used to distinguish between these two species.


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