One of the crown jewels of the dry forest of the Anjajavy reserve is a fossilized giant lemur skull in a cave. We joined a group of Anjajavy guests in a late afternoon hike to view this famous skull. To reach it, we first had to climb down into the front part of the cave, where it's still light, via a makeshift ten-foot ladder. Then we took turns to carefully squeeze through narrow limestone passages with flashlights in the dark to reach the skull itself. This marvelous snake was perched as shown here between the light part of the cave and the lemur skull, digesting some huge meal. Its presence dissuaded some of the guests from reaching their skeletal goal.

The color scheme and shape of this snake clearly identify it as Ithycyphus. The references I've found identify three Ithycyphus species with the lighter-towards-front, darker-towards-back color scheme, I. perineti, I. oursi, and I. miniatus. This one looked very similar to the I. perineti we had seen on the Masoala peninsula, and I would have assumed it was the same species. But I. perineti is a rainforest species whereas I. miniatus is a dry forest species, and Anjajavy is dry forest. Also, the range maps in Glaw and Vences show no I. perineti on the west coast at all, and do show I miniatus nearby.

"Tiny Night Snake" is a pretty silly English name for this snake, as according to Glaw and Vences it reaches a length of nearly a meter. It is smaller than I. perineti though, which reaches a length of at least a meter and a half.

My wife Monica Rua took this photograph.

Here is a list of all the reptiles and frogs I saw on this trip to Madagascar.