Homalopsidae

Homalopsidae is a family of about 30 genera and more than 50 species of Indo-Australian water snakes, also called mud snakes or bockadams. Members are typically stout bodied and aquatic, and all are mildly venomous. The family shows unusual diversity in form and behavior: Erpeton has fleshy appendages on its snout, Bitia has enlarged palatine teeth, and Cerberus sidewinds across mudflats at low tide. Two genera, Fordonia and Gerarda, are the only snakes known to tear their prey apart before eating it, pulling soft shelled crabs through their coils before consuming them.