Elephant Trunk snake, Wrinkle file snake
The most notable feature of file snakes is their skin and scales. The skin is loose and baggy, giving the impression of being several sizes too large for the snake, and the scales, rather than overlapping, are tiny pyramidal projections that led to their common names. Female Arafura file snakes are usually larger than males.
Arafura file snakes can be found in northern Australia and New Guinea. There they live in freshwater habitats such as lagoons, sheltered riverbanks and rivers, lakes, and swamps, floodplains, and may sometimes occur in brackish or inshore marine waters.
Arafura file snakes are entirely aquatic creatures but they can move on land if they need to. These snakes are ambush predators that hunt their prey at night. They lurk at the bottom of rivers, streams, and estuaries, and wait for fish to approach, which they grip with their coils. The rough scales allow them to hold the fish despite the mucus coating.
Arafura file snakes are carnivores (piscivores) and eat almost exclusively fish. They are known to prey on large fish, such as eel-tailed catfish.
Females of this species are viviparous and give birth to 6 and 27 live young. The gestation period takes about 3 months and females reproduce only every 8 to 10 years.
Arafura file snakes don’t face any major threats at present.
The IUCN Red List and other sources don’t provide the number of the Arafura file snake total population size. Currently, this species is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List and its numbers today are stable.