''Leioheterodon modestus'', also known as the blonde hognose snake, is a species of harmless

snake Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...

in the family

Pseudoxyrhophiidae The Pseudoxyrhophiidae is a family of elapoid snakes, found mostly in Madagascar. They were formerly placed as a subfamily of the Lamprophiidae, but have been more recently identified as a distinct family. It contains about 22 genera in two ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

. It is considered a

species of least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. Th ...

. The mineralized skeleton of this snake contains

apatite Apatite is a group of phosphate minerals, usually hydroxyapatite, fluorapatite and chlorapatite, with high concentrations of OH−, F− and Cl− ions, respectively, in the crystal. The formula of the admixture of the three most common ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3011440 Pseudoxyrhophiidae Snakes of Africa Reptiles of Madagascar Endemic fauna of Madagascar Taxa named by Albert Günther Reptiles described in 1863