Calamaria nuchalis

The narrow-headed reed snake is a Sulawesi Calamaria described by George Boulenger in 1896. Its original account noted a yellowish nape bearing two large black blotches, probably the feature behind the name nuchalis. The holotype is held by the Natural History Museum. The accessible modern database withholds the fuller diagnosis, so further colours, dimensions and scale characters are not reconstructed from related species (Reptile Database).

The recorded type locality is in southern Sulawesi at 2,000 feet, approximately 610 m. The species lays eggs, but the opened sources provide no direct account of habitat structure, diet, burrowing behaviour, daily activity, clutch size or incubation. Its taxonomic history includes treatments by Inger and Marx and later Sulawesi snake references. This entry consequently stays close to the few published species-level facts available (Reptile Database; Boulenger 1896 citation).