Curious nesting place of Simotes octolineatus
This short note by H. N. Ridley documents the discovery of a female Simotes octolineatus snake nesting inside a beetle-bored tunnel in a bough of an Spathodea nilotica tree in the Botanic Gardens (p. 263).
Summary
Ridley reports that in September 1905, when a sickly old Spathodea nilotica was felled in the Botanic Gardens, a living female Simotes octolineatus approximately one foot long was found ensconced in a longicorn beetle tunnel within a bough more than twenty feet from the ground. The snake had already laid about a dozen oblong eggs, each an inch long, inside the tunnel. The tree was isolated with a bare trunk, and the snake must have entered through one of several beetle escape openings in the bough (p. 263).