Ophidian predation on the endemic Short-crested Island Forest Lizard, <i>Coryphophylax subcristatus</i> (Blyth 1860), in the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago

dynamics is crucial for under- standing any ecosystem, especially relatively simple insular systems, where even small changes can have devastating effects (Schalk and Cove 2018;Chi et al. 2020).Short-crested Bay Island Forest Lizards (Coryphophylax subcristatus) (Agamidae) are endemic to the islands of the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago (Mohanty et al. 2016; Harikrishnan et al. 2012a).This is one of two species in this insular endemic genus, the other being the Short-tailed Bay Island Forest Lizard (Coryphophylax brevicaudus), which is readily distinguished from C. subcristatus by its relatively smaller body size and noticeably shorter tail.Coryphophylax brevicaudus is known only from the Andaman Archipelago and, although the type locality of C. subcristatus is Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, it is believed to be widely distributed and could be a species complex, with taxa in the group potentially restricted to island groups within the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelago, a general pattern among other species of lizards in this region (Krishnan 2005; Harikrishnan et al. 2012b;Chandramouli et al. 2023).We herein report four ophidian predators of this poorly known species.At 2015 h on 1 April 2022, we observed an adult male Andaman Catsnake (Boiga andamanensis) (SVL ~950 mm) preying on an adult Coryphophylax subcristatus (SVL ~110 mm) in Mount Harriet National Park (Fig. 1A).The snake, on a branch about 1.5 m above the ground, was about midway through swallowing the lizard head-first.Complete ingestion took about 7 min from the time of the initial observation.