The common file snake is widespread throughout the warm eastern parts of southern Africa. It is a robust snake with a triangular profile and heavily keeled scales, giving this snake a rough appearance. A distinctive row of enlarged white scales extend down the centre of its back. Its colour is grey to black with some purple or pinkish interstitial skin visible between the scales. The head is usually darker than the rest of the body and the small eyes are dark black in colour. Despite being a widespread species, it is seldom seen, spending most of its life underground in burrows and holes.
It is often encountered on warm summer nights, especially after some decent rain. It is a large snake, reaching around 1,75m in length, although around 1,2m is the average size. The common file snake is a slow-moving and docile snake, which seldom attempts to bite, however it will emit a foul-smelling liquid from the cloaca if handled.
It feeds on a variety of prey items including rodents, frogs and lizards, but is especially well known for its snake-eating ability. Despite being a non-venomous constrictor, the snake is known to eat highly venomous snakes including Mozambique spitting cobras and puff adders. A 1,5m individual killed on a road near Mala-Mala was cut open to examine the stomach content. In the stomach was a 1m olive grass snake, a young 80cm southern African python, a 50cm brown water snake and a 48cm Mozambique spitting cobra – a good example of the preference for snakes in its diet! The common file snake appears to have some immunity to the venom of other snakes and will often swallow the other snake live.
They lay around 3 – 13 eggs in early summer and the eggs take around 70 days to hatch. The young will measure around 30 – 45cm after hatching and are perfect replicas of the adults – they are also not often seen, probably living underground.
In some African cultures, the file snake along with the ground hornbill, is considered an omen of death and if one is found at your residence, it means someone will die soon. Unfortunately, because of this, file snakes are often killed, despite being a harmless and docile snake that will eat other potentially dangerous snakes in the area.
These beautiful docile snakes are a lucky sighting and finding a large individual is rare and should be a treasured encounter.
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