Acrochordus
family of reptiles
The Acrochordidae, commonly known as wart snakes, Java wart snakes, file snakes, elephant trunk snakes, or dogface snakes are a monogeneric family of snakes. The sole genus Acrochordus are basal aquatic snakes found in Australia and tropical Asia, with three species recognized.
Description
All are entirely aquatic, lacking the broad belly-scales found in most other snakes and possessing dorsally located eyes. Their most notable feature 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, possess tiny pyramidal projections that led to their common names. Adults grow to between 60 and 243 centimetres (24 and 96 in) in length.
This type of snake are ambush predators, lurking at the bottom of rivers, streams and estuaries, and waiting for fish to approach, which they grip with their coils. The rough scales allow them to hold the fish despite the mucus coating.
Geographic range
Found from western India and Sri Lanka through tropical Southeast Asia to the Philippines, south through the Indonesian island group to Timor, east through New Guinea to the northern coast of Australia to Mussau Island, the Bismarck Archipelago and Guadalcanal Island in the Solomon Islands.
Relation to humans
These animals are rapidly becoming rare as their hides are used for handbags and leather (stripped of scales, of course).
The public source identifies “Acrochordus” as family of reptiles. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Acrochordus, family and reptiles.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q752551. The Library of Congress control number is sh89003050. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Acrochordus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.