Common names: Arafura File snake, Elephant Trunk Snake or wrinkle file snake.

Acrochordus arafurae is an aquatic

Aquatic animal

An aquatic animal is an animal, either vertebrate or invertebrate, which lives in water for most or all of its life. It may breathe air or extract its oxygen from that dissolved in water through specialised organs called gills, or directly through its skin. Natural environments and the animals that...

 snake

Snake

Snakes are elongate, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes that can be distinguished from legless lizards by their lack of eyelids and external ears. Like all squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales...

 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 found in northern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

. No subspecies are currently recognized.

Description

Adults grown to 8.25 ft (2.5 m) in length. They have amazingly loose skin and are known to prey on large fish, such as eel-tailed catfish

Eel-tailed Catfish

The eel-tailed catfish, Tandanus tandanus, is a species of catfish of the family Plotosidae. This fish is also known as dewfish, freshwater catfish, jewfish, and tandan.-Distribution:...

. Females are usually larger than males and they have been known to give birth to up to 17 young. The indigenous peoples of northern Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 often hunt these snakes as they are quite common. As the snakes are near immobilized without the support of water the hunters merely throw each newly caught snake on the bank and continue hunting until they have enough. In New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

the skin is used to make drums.