The Seychelles wolf snake, Lycognathophis seychellensis, is a species of 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...

 in the Colubridae family. It is monotypic

Monotypic

In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group with only one biological type. The term's usage differs slightly between botany and zoology. The term monotypic has a separate use in conservation biology, monotypic habitat, regarding species habitat conversion eliminating biodiversity and...

 within the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Lycognathophis. The New Latin

New Latin

The term New Latin, or Neo-Latin, is used to describe the Latin language used in original works created between c. 1500 and c. 1900. Among other uses, Latin during this period was employed in scholarly and scientific publications...

 name, Lycognathophis, is derived from the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 words λύκος (lykos) meaning "wolf", υνάθος (gnathos) meaning "jaw", and όψις (ophis) meaning "snake", referring to the snake's dentition.

Description

Maxillary teeth large, subequal, 20-22; anterior mandibular teeth very large, much larger than the posterior. Head very distinct from neck; eye moderate, with vertically elliptic pupil; no loreal shield. Body elongate; dorsal scales keeled, with apical pits, in 17 rows. Tail long; anal divided; subcaudals paired. Ventrals 184-202; subcaudals 92-110.

Dorsally yellowish or grayish brown, uniform or with dark brown spots; dark streak on each side of head, passing through eye; upper lip yellowish, usually with brown dots; posteriorly four series of brown spots, confluent into stripes on tail. Ventrally yellowish, usually powdered or dotted with brown; a brown spot at each outer end of anterior ventrals.

Adults may attain 1 m (40 inches) in total length, with a tail 31 cm (12 inches) long.

Habitat

Its natural habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s are subtropical or tropical dry forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s and subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests.