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Ever seen those tile-like scales on the top of the head of a snake? Those are called cephalic (derived from the Greek word kephale which means head) plates. Now you know why snakehead fish are called as such, because they have the same pattern of scales on the top of their heads, and because their elongated faces resemble that of a snake.

Cephalic scales of a snake ©Smith, M.A. (1943). The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, Including the Whole of the Indo-Chinese Sub-Region. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol 3 (Serpentes).
Close up of the head ©Phalinn Ooi Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (Generic)

Ceylon snakeheads (Channa orientalis) are endemic to Sri Lanka and are only found in the areas of the Southwestern lowlands and the Mahaweli River basin, thus making them extremely sensitive to changes in habitat. They are locally known as kola kanayaa (කොල කනයා). They are carnivorous and operate as ambush hunters and would eat anything smaller than themselves.

Generally, snakeheads can get large (such as the striped snakehead [Channa striata] or loolaa [ලූලා] as the locals call it) and therefore are prized as a food source in most Asian countries.

Channa striata ©Dileepa Rajaguru (ID-DR)

The Ceylon snakehead on the other hand, happens to be small, reaching only about 10 cm in length and is therefore categorised as a dwarf snakehead. There is a sinhalese saying about the loolaa and the kanayaa (kanayaa is an umbrella term in general and does not allude to one specific species) comparing their apparent size which roughly translates to say “kanayaa becomes the boss in the pit a loolaa is absent – ලූලා නැති වළට කනයා පණ්ඩිතයා ලු”, which means that an incapable person can get a powerful position if others in the fray are even more incapable (local politics in a nutshell). 

A snakehead’s greatest party trick is its ability to survive outside of water for up to four days if the weather conditions outside are sufficiently wet. How they do this is by the use of accessory respiratory organs (apart from gills, there are small air chambers covered in blood vessels, which enable snakeheads to “breathe” air from outside if the conditions are right). Snakeheads also possess two tubes in front of their faces called anterior nostrils, which help with air circulation.

Snakehead on open ground ©nakun.us
Protruding anterior nostrils of a Channa orientalis ©practicalfishkeeping.co.uk

Ceylon snakehead males are smaller than females, but they are more intense in color (which deepens during mating season).

©portail.caucavietnam.com

After courtship, the male accepts fertilized eggs from the female and holds them in his mouth until they hatch. This behavior, called paternal mouth breeding, is observed in many snakehead species. Once hatched, the female provides the fry with infertile eggs for sustenance until they are mature enough to find food on their own.

mouthbrooding Channa gachua male | ©Valter Weijola, Research Gate

They are a hardy species, and have a tolerance for muddy, murky water. But because of the high demand of having them as ornamental fish, Ceylon snakeheads are being taken from their habitats. Plus the drastic increase in deforestation has also added to the drop in their population in the wild. It rightfully falls on us to raise awareness on the preservation of the ecosystems of these beautiful creatures, so they can be rightfully appreciated by the future generations, also.

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There is a need to split hairs when it comes to identifying rabbits from hares (pun intended, by all means). We urge you to keep your hair on as we guide you through the not so subtle differences which sets rabbits and hares apart. Unfortunately, chomping down on carrots and greeting people with the classic “Ehhh, what’s up Doc?” prior to going around creating Loki-level havoc is not one of these differences. 

The main point is to know that there are no wild rabbits in Sri Lanka. Those cuddly fluffballs you croon over and whisper sweet nothings to at pet shops and farms, are domesticated breeds. What we do have, stomping about in ever prescient and palpable anxiousness and nervousness that would drive a therapist up the wall, are wild hares.

Black-naped hare ©N. A. Naseer / http://www.nilgirimarten.com
Common Hare – ©Diego Delso / delso.photo / License CC BY-SA

Hares are comparatively bigger and leaner than rabbits (size can not be a reliable metric as there are pet rabbits the size of IKEA coffee tables) and generally tend to have longer ears and stronger legs. Hares can run real fast because they inhabit open spaces (That’s why the fable is about the tortoise and the hare and not about the rabbit). 

©notesonzoology.com

Hares are mainly nocturnal (though it is not uncommon to see them during daylight hours) and during the day they usually keep a low profile using their fur coats to blend in really well with their surroundings. They also make sure to make little to no sound unless injured, and have been observed to communicate with other hares by drumming their feet on the ground. Like their name of the subspecies that’s found in Sri Lanka implies, the back of their necks (nape) are black. When they lie down and make a loaf, the nape becomes not that visible.

Unlike rabbits who live in underground “warrens”, hares have a sort of nest made of a dry bed of coarse grass called a “form”. These forms often expose hares to nearby predators, so they have to be ever vigilant (which explains their constant neurotic state that makes Courage the Cowardly Dog look sane).

A hare’s form – ©Des Colhoun / geograph.org.uk
Rabbit warrens – ©Chris Eilbeck / geograph.org.uk

The diet of black-naped hares mainly comprises grasses, leaves, herbs, fruit and seeds. They also have the habit of performing coprophagy, a wonderful word derived from the Greek copros, “feces” and phagein, “to eat”… Basically, they eat their own poop. Why? Well it’s certainly not because one hare took something another angry hare said, quite literally! They engage in coprophagy because their stomachs aren’t capable of  digesting most of the plant material they ingest. So, by literally eating their own feces, they are able to absorb the much needed nutrients from the ingested plant materials, which were not absorbed the first time around. 

We all learned in our primary school days about how much the “Haawaa / හාවා” (as it is called in Sinhala, also a blanket term for both rabbits and hares in Sri Lanka) loves to eat the three-flower beggarweed (Grona triflora) or “Undupiyaliya / උඳුපියලිය”. Actually there is no recorded evidence that it prefers to gorge on this plant like Garfield loves lasagna. Also, many an Asian folklore states that there is a rabbit on the moon. This is a myth that  originated in China and spread to other Asian cultures, while Europeans believe that there is a man on the moon, who was banished there for some crime.

Hare or Man? ©Zeimusu / Wikimedia Commons
Three-flower beggarweed ©Dinesh Valke / Ankuca-pati

Hares are solitary animals and prefer to stay that way unless they are rearing their young. They are fecund, which means that they can give birth to a large litter at one time, which gave rise to the expression “breeding like rabbits” (although in this case it should be hares). Newborn hares are called “leverets.” Leverets are born precocial (which means that a newborn is able to feed itself and move independently, immediately after birth) and with a full coat of fur. This can be construed as an evolutionary adaptation to the fact that their “forms” offer next to no protection, as opposed to the “warrens” (talk about leverets having evolutionary leverage).

Leverets ©Autumnalis / Wikimedia Commons

They have an island wide spread and so far the main threats they face are habitat destruction and poaching, where the latter has become the most prominent threat. Makeshift snares set up to catch hares can end up costing the life of other animals as well, as snares do not discriminate. They fulfill the role that nature has bestowed on them, and it’s up to us to raise awareness, ensuring their safety and freedom for days to come.

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Pied kingfishers (Ceryle rudis) are a minimalist’s wet dream. They pack up so much suave and swag for a bird with a two-tone (which is what pied means, bi-colored and not getting a pie thrown in your face) color palette, it’s just ridiculous. They are that beautiful. Out of the seven species of kingfisher found in Sri Lanka, they are the third most common (more or less) which is the same for their worldwide distribution where they are found from sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia from Turkey to India to China. Apart from their large distribution, they tend to prefer a more permanent home. They do migrate short distances depending on seasons but do not undertake continent-spanning migrations like most birds.

They have no need to hunt on land as their prey is entirely or mostly aquatic (small fish, crustaceans, aquatic insects, small frogs, etc). So, like hummingbirds, they have become adept at hovering above a stationary point and when you look at videos of them hovering, you can clearly see that only their wings move and the head is motionless and the body is positioned at a roughly 45-degree angle to the water surface. The wings move in a figure-eight position (like the infinity symbol) so they can create the lift they need to be airborne and their wings move at a rate of 10 movements per second! 

Pied Fisher exiting the water with a fish. Photograph by Anjallee Prabhakaran.

This high energy output makes them voracious eaters and they need to eat approximately 50% of their body weight, every day, to survive. They can cover large bodies of water without the constant need for a perch close by because of their amazing hovering skills (this is called “aerial perching”). They hover over the waterline, sometimes fifty feet up and once they lock down their prey (they have this amazing ability to compensate for the effects of refraction caused by water and pinpoint their prey exactly), they dive beak first (like a guided missile) and snatch their prey and gulp it down mid-flight or would take it to the perch to stun it before gulping head first (The reason why birds swallow a fish head first is because that way, the fish scales won’t irritate their insides while it travels down to the stomach).

When they would finally perch on a nearby branch, they would bob their heads up and down and start gossiping with the neighbors about the day (gets as loud as the manning market on a Saturday noon). They are very gregarious (loves company) and would hang out in small groups. Also, it is not unlikely to see large roosts at night. Males and females look alike but easy to tell them apart because of the bands on their chests. Males have a thick band on top and a thin one below and females only have one thick band which is sometimes broken down in the middle.

Photographs by Sayuru Imesh.

Like their common kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) cousins, pied kingfishers make their nests on earthy banks closer to a water source. Both sexes put their backs (and beaks) into making the tunnel and it usually measures about 1m in length. Then the female lays about four to 5 eggs and the male helps with the incubation and the feeding of the female throughout the whole process. Because of their sociable nature, other members of the group would willingly help parents to look after their chicks (which is called cooperative breeding). Up to four “nannies” would volunteer their services and usually, the nannies in question are adults who failed to raise their own chicks or the parent’s adult kids from a previous litter. Guess it is family first for these critters (Somewhere, Dom Toretto sheds a tear).