Painted coral snake

Identification

Coral snakes are small to medium-sized snakes with short, fixed fangs at the front of the mouth and bright red bodies crossed by complete black, yellow or white rings⁵. In the painted coral snake, the black rings are single rather than in groups of three⁴. In the most populated parts of Brazil it is the only single-ringed coral snake, while most other coral snakes there have black rings in threes⁴. Its Portuguese names include “black-headed coral snake” and “white-collared coral snake”¹.

Adult males from São Paulo state averaged 52 cm from snout to vent, and the largest measured 74 cm².

Distribution

The painted coral snake lives in Brazil, from Rio Grande do Sul north along the Atlantic coast to Rio Grande do Norte and inland to Mato Grosso do Sul, and in Paraguay and Misiones province in north-eastern Argentina¹. It has been reported from Uruguay in the past, but there are no reliable records from that country¹. In Brazil it is mainly found in the Atlantic Forest along the coast⁵.

Habitat

This is a common snake of the Atlantic Forest in south-eastern Brazil, living in dense rainforest and semi-deciduous seasonal forest². It hides in the forest floor and is closely tied to the leaf litter, which gives it shelter and is where it carries out its daily activities³.

Behaviour

The painted coral snake is semi-fossorial, spending much of its time hidden under leaf litter and soil, which makes it hard to see³. Coral snakes cause few bites in Brazil because of this burrowing habit⁹. They are not aggressive: when they meet people they usually try to escape and bite only as a last resort⁵. Both sexes are most active on the surface in spring, when they search for mates, and groups of one male with two females, or two males with one female, have been seen mating².

Diet

The painted coral snake feeds mainly on long, slender animals: amphisbaenians (worm lizards), lizards, especially legless ones, caecilians and small burrowing snakes³. Because these prey are hard to keep, feeding it in captivity is difficult, and it refuses fish, which some other coral snakes accept³.

Reproduction

The painted coral snake lays eggs¹. Its breeding is strongly seasonal: females develop their eggs and mate early in the rainy season, lay their eggs in the middle of it, and the young hatch at the end of the rainy season or early in the dry season². Males produce sperm in autumn and store it until the spring mating season².

Venom and medical significance

The painted coral snake is highly venomous; the WHO lists it in Category 2 in Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay⁶, and in Brazil it and Micrurus frontalis cause most coral snake bites³. A bite usually causes little change at the bite site, but it can lead to drooping eyelids, blurred or double vision and a sleepy look, and deaths are caused by paralysis of the breathing muscles, often after a delay in getting help⁷. Coral snake bites are rare in Brazil, with 380 reported in 2023 (about 1% of snakebites) and no deaths⁹. Every coral snake bite is treated as potentially severe, using anti-elapid antivenom made from the venoms of this species and M. frontalis^3,8. In one case, a man bitten while handling a painted coral snake that people thought was harmless developed drooping eyelids, double vision and difficulty swallowing, and recovered after antivenom⁵. Anyone bitten should go to hospital immediately.

Conservation

The painted coral snake is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (published 2019)¹². It is still a common snake in the Atlantic Forest of south-eastern Brazil².

Similar species

Several harmless or mildly venomous snakes, often called false coral snakes, copy the red, black and white colours of true coral snakes^5,10. Telling them apart is difficult even for experts: the painted coral snake in the case above was picked up by a biologist who believed it was a false coral⁵. Some true coral snakes also lack the familiar red, white and black pattern¹¹. Researchers advise that any snake that looks like a coral snake should be treated as a true coral snake⁵. These differences are not a safe basis for handling any snake. Keep your distance from every snake you cannot identify.

In captivity

The painted coral snake is a dangerously venomous snake and is not suitable as a pet. In Brazil, keeping venomous snakes is allowed only in research centres or for the pharmaceutical industry¹¹. The Instituto Butantan keeps these snakes to make antivenom, but they are difficult to keep alive in captivity³. A painted coral snake yields only about 3 mg of dried venom, compared with about 83 mg from a jararaca, so many snakes are needed to make coral snake antivenom³.