Now, I'm not a herpetologist, *but*...

[dungrollin]

No: HPFGUIDX 115333


(again, can't preview - apologise for paragraphing)

Gosh, I'm sooo easily distracted. I sat down intending to reply to 
Kneasy's last post (which I'm going to have to put off until 
tomorrow now), and ended up writing something entirely different.  
(Well, truth be told, I intended to ignore HPfGU for today and get 
on with my thesis... Ah well.)

I've managed to waste a load of time on this little distraction so 
I'd really appreciate some replies. ;-)

-------------------------------------------------------------
So, Nagini. What is she?  Is she a made-up snake, or can we trace 
her to a real species?

I've trawled the back posts right up to the release of OotP (there's 
dedication for you), and people appear to have speculated about her 
a bit, but to my mind, not nearly enough. So I'm digging deeper.

Here's some selected snippets of what others have said:

Lori (74978)
"... she [JKR] word played this one, Naga is Sanskrit for `snake'."

Dan (75683)
"Nagini, I believe, is just a biggish snake with venom that prevents 
blood from clotting and stopping up wounds."

Anne (88564) wonders if Nagini *is* in fact a Naga.

Sen (90712) thinks she's another basilisk.

Amey (107126)
"In Hindu Mythology, *Nag* are the magical race of snakes. They 
possess some very powerful magic and may live for thousands of years
(some are immortal). They are alternatively associated with black 
magic and white magic. So I think, Nagini is one of the Nagas and 
her venom is the thing which keeps LV in the current form.
It is something like Unicorn blood in that respect."

Iggy McSnurd (84032) after some comments about mythology says:
"Thus indicating that Nagini is the name of a female Naga, and as 
the name originates from an area known to revere cobras, King Cobras 
in particular, it can be logically deduced that Nagini is most 
likely a female King Cobra."

Then Kneasy (88591) almost stealing my thunder, but (*thank 
goodness*) not coming up with my reasoning, says:
"The snake thing; any evidence that Nagini is a cobra? I can't seem 
to find any. There was a thread on this a while back and the only 
possible clue was her name, though 'naga' is just the Sanskrit 
for 'serpent' of any type. As you say, 'Naja' is the cobra genus, 
which doesn't quite fit Nagini. Naga *can* also refer to a mythical 
Indian beast that is half snake, half human, but I don't think 
Nagini has shown any human traits.
She's a bit big, *at least* 12 ft according to Frank Bryce, and her
bite seems to cause more physical damage than most of the venomous
snakes I know of (except perhaps the Bushmaster which can strike hard
enough to break ribs, and that's S.American anyway. I'm ignoring the
Fer-de-Lance, the Bushmaster is bigger)."

Only possible clue, eh? Right.

The clues are as follows:

1. Nagini is a biter not a squeezer, (she's quite clearly venomous, 
as wormtail has to milk her venom – not a job I'd fancy, and 
Arthur... well, you've all read that bit).  
2. She is (at least) 12 feet long.
3. "... a man was sitting on the floor ahead, his chin drooping on 
to his chest, his outline gleaming in the dark ..." Arguably, she 
can see through invisibility cloaks.
4. "...the tip of it's diamond patterned tail had vanished through 
the gap." GoF chapter 1. (Ooh, I'm feeling *smug* about that one!)

Now, I'm going to start with #3, because I remembered something the 
other day, (which sparked this whole thing off) and have just 
checked it up in my handy encyclopaedia of snakes (which is 
unfortunately not nearly as encyclopaedic as I would like, but such 
is life).  

There is a subfamily of the Viperidae called the Crotalinae (in 
uncouth common English [spits], called `pit vipers'), which includes 
rattlesnakes, copperheads and water moccasins.  Members of this 
subfamily have things called loreal pits, between the eye and 
nostril, which contain *infrared* detectors.  As one would expect, 
this is a talent mostly found in nocturnally hunting snakes.

A-ha!  So, no need to postulate that Nagini can see through 
invisibility cloaks, if she can see infrared!  Actually it's not 
*that* unusual in snakes – AFAIK lots of pythons and boas can too – 
but according to #1, she's not a squeezer, so she must be a 
Crotaline, right?  

So we're looking for a 12 foot long Crotaline with a diamond 
patterned tail.

By the way, Cobras are in the subfamily Viperinae, and can't see 
infrared (AFAIK). And the King Cobra's not patterned.

Many people have hypothesised that, due to the origins of her name, 
she must be a species from India.  So... I spent a while trawling 
the web for pictures of Indian Crotalines.  Didn't manage to find 
all the species that are known to occur in India, but the vast 
majority of them appear to be green and definitely not with diamond-
patterns.  The few that do have patterning which (at a stretch) 
could be described as rhomboid, are not nearly big enough.

Anyway, it's not necessarily the case that she must come from India, 
is it?  JKR has fun with her names, `Nagini' is certainly a 
reference to the Naga, but doesn't need to be a direct postal 
address, if you see what I mean... Let her play. 
So what about the rest of the world?  Well, Crotalines are found 
only in Asia and the Americas. 

The Diamond-backed rattlesnake – this is the most obvious choice of 
course, but several things make me doubt it.

Firstly, if Nagini was a rattler, I reckon we'd know.  I don't think 
that JKR could have hidden it from us this long, the snake circling 
Harry and Voldy during the graveyard scene, the tail disappearing 
through the door... it would be far too tempting to have some 
sinister rattling going on in those scenes, but we hear nothing.  

Secondly, the tails of (even diamond-backed) rattlers are striped, 
*with a rattle on the end*, not something that's easy to miss.  

Thirdly, they only get up to 7 feet long.

There are a number of other rattlesnakes with similar patterning, 
but the arguments for the diamond-backed are just as applicable.

The only decent fit I can come up with is the Bushmaster. 
(Bows most humbly to Kneasy).
Five reasons:

1. Bushmasters produce an enormous amount of venom. The average 
yield of dried venom from a bushmaster is 411 mg (which is 
apparently a lot compared to other species), allowing frequent 
milking whilst Voldy is sick.

2. Their heat-sensitive pits allow a bushmaster to detect a heat 
difference of just 0.0036 degrees F (0.002 degrees C).   

3. They get up to 12 feet long.

4. Their patterning is most definitely diamond-shaped.

5. Quoting Kneasy (bows again, for good measure) "the Bushmaster ... 
can strike hard enough to break ribs."

Here's where it starts to get fun.

The Latin (scientific) name for the Bushmaster is Lachesis muta.

Lachesis is one of the fates - The Disposer, one of the three 
Moirae. She measures the length of the thread of human life spun by 
Clotho and determines its destiny.

Ooo-er.

muta – here I need a bit of help from you clever people, as my 
Latin's rubbish.  I think it comes from mutare, which means to 
shift, change or alter.

It is of course, entirely possible that Nagini is a made-up magic 
snake, and thus all this speculation has been in vain.  Let me just 
mention briefly, though a couple of other creatures that appear to 
be magical, though don't appear in FBAWTFT.  

Hedwig is quite clearly a snowy owl (Nyctea scandica) yet also 
magical.  The rats in The Magical Menagerie are `black rats' (Rattus 
rattus) yet clearly showing off their magic (can't quote that 
properly, as someone's pinched my copy of PoA).  
Er... I'm sure there are more, but you get my meaning.

Oh damn, I really ought to do some real work now...  Can someone 
else take this and run with it?

Cheers,
Dungrollin
(who solved the chocolate problem, but is now in search of biscuits)