جدارى سينائى

Like other species of the genus it is largely nocturnal.

Endangered

A medium-sized, fairly slender snake. Largest Egyptian specimen has a total length of 1,021 mm. Tail short, tail / total length = 0.09-0.15; nostril in a partly divided nasal; loreal elongate, entering the eye below a preocular; 7-9 supralabials, third, fourth and fifth enter the eye; eye rather small, iris dark, pupil vertical; 214-223 ventrals, 51-59 paired subcaudals, dorsals smooth, 19 scale rows around mid-body, anal divided (based on 3 Egyptian specimens). Dorsum gray, with about 40 thin, blackish, transverse bands (between neck and vent); head and neck black, both dorsally and ventrally, with fine white and gray specks. Venter lighter gray covered with a wide, longitudinal, blackish band. The dorsal bars become reduced and indistinct in adult animals.

All documented Egyptian material appears to come from the general St. Katherine area (Schmidt and Marx 1956, Werner 1988). One further juvenile specimen was found in Wadi El Sheikh in September 2000. Professional col­lectors of Abu Rawash claim that the specimen Saleh (1997) depicts actually came from Gebel Maghara and not "Southern Sinai mountains" as reported. The reduced number of dorsal trans­verse bars (not more than 30 between neck and vent) supports the proposal that this specimen came from a northern locality.

Endemic to a small geographic area, which encompasses Sinai, the Negev, and has most recently been reported from western Jordan.

Not much information available. The few specimens available from Sinai were collected from lightly vegetated hilly and mountainous regions among rocks. A traffic casualty found in September 2000 was crossing a wide gravelly plain with steppe-like vegetation.

Rare and localized. Reported from the pet trade a couple of times.