Prior to the advent of intrusive CCTV, herpetologists would rely on survivors’ first-hand accounts of snakes climbing into beds at night, especially the highly venomous, hiss-less, light-bite kraits. But thanks to live monitoring, aimed at burglars, etc., two pieces of footage have emerged back-to-back of intruder serpents. The horror, as well as the sheer drama of the filmed encounters, evokes the proverbial ‘awaking to a nightmare’.

From the desert region of Phalodi in Rajasthan, a long, thickish snake was caught on CCTV climbing over the thighs of a sleeping worker in the Vishnu Dairy Plant. The serpent, which expert Vivek R Sharma reckoned as a black-headed royal snake, crossed the thighs before turning to his face. The worker was jolted out of slumber when the snake got too hot.

The snake was subsequently tossed off the bed by the worker’s flailing legs, which perhaps had never exerted themselves this hard! The CCTV does not reveal who was more petrified: man or serpent, because snakes are equally taken by surprise as they may not realise they have slipped over an inert, living being. The good snake forgot to bite the worker, who fled the bed emitting shrieks worthy of a flock of banshees.

After that, came footage from a more alluring scene. A krait climbed onto the bed of a shop assistant in a liquor shop in Fatehabad, Haryana. The worker had a bottle of liquor next to him while slumbering in the sweet dreams induced by Bacchus. He turned around in his sleep and the krait, which was slithering along his back, started to wriggle violently to avoid being crushed. The assistant, jerked out of his dreams, discovered the krait. But such is the courage that several pegs lend to a man that he sat coolly on his bed watching the petrified krait slip off the bed. No bites, again.

The footage attracted netizens, who saucily commented: the “krait had come for a peg or two”, had “come to filch a bottle” or was “already sozzled” and that “Yamaraj was, thankfully, on holiday that night”!

For those fascinated by nature’s assortment of creatures, but are not that knowledgeable on identification, a chance encounter with a yellow-throated marten affords astonishment and bewilderment in equal measure. Cruising along the Morni hills, Sohan Singh filmed a pair of what impressed him as strange fellows, quite dog-like in appearance and behaviour. Were they the outcome of some wandering village cur’s adventures in the jungle!

A perplexed Singh sent their video to me. While recognising them as martens, it struck me that their occurrence in Morni was unusual. I sought Prof Gurpartap Singh’s command over natural history to ascertain the number of marten sightings in Haryana prior to Sohan’s chance discovery at the end of August 2026. “This species is expected to be found in the entire Shivalik Hills belt relevant for us. Both Morni Hills and Kalesar fit the bill for the marten. That said, no museum record was found from Haryana,” Prof Singh told this writer.

The marten’s rarity in Haryana can be gauged from the fact that I unearthed just two more records. Wildlife biologist Dr Rajiv Kalsi was astonished to find martens in his camera traps (set for wild cats) at Kalesar National Park in 2020-2021. Pradyumna Majumdar found four martens gambolling on a mango tree in Bir Shikargah in 2022.

“Kalesar and Bir Shikargah are more in the plains though contiguous with hilly forests. These two fall in latitudes more southern for the martens’ distribution range as the ecology of this species is more suited to upland Himalayan tracts below the treeline,” explained Kalsi.

Martens are omnivores and quite cutely poke their snouts into the luscious lips of Semul blooms for nectar. But they are also bloody rascals: famed for agility and courage in nailing prey larger than themselves such as monkeys, langurs and fawns. Martens attack from behind, bite deep and hold on, while evading counter-actions with a deftness of step.

Their fur is adorned in brown, black and golden-yellowish variations. As they emerge from their winter moult, the fur takes on a radiance. Coupled with their frisky movements, martens never fail to exert a charm on naturalists.