Excerpt from the book Animals Evolution Avoided. This book describes 40 animals that ought to exist but don’t, because I made them up.

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There are 270 species of snakes in India, 60 of which are highly venomous including the Indian Cobra, the Krait, and the Russell’s viper. Every year 20,000 people die in India due to Snake bites. The one snake which is not responsible for any deaths in India is the Jaipur Python. This 8-feet long snake is an herbivore and won’t touch meat.

The Jaipur Python can live in many habitats, scrub land, trees, and even in buildings where it will steal vegetables from kitchens and make a quick getaway. The snake can move at about 12 miles an hour and ranks along with the Black Mamba as the fastest snake in the world, although in the Jaipur Python’s case when it’s moving this fast it’s trying to escape with some food it has stolen and doesn’t want to be caught.

Jaipur Pythons will pick fruit from a tree and take it back to its lair for storage. These pythons tend not to gorge themselves on food as this would slow them down if they had to escape. The snake has no poison and the only time it constricts is when it wraps part of its body around a branch and then shakes the branch to remove the fruit. This saves time for the snake. Occasionally, they will wrap their body around the top of a large vegetable and then pull this out of the ground, but this only happens when the snake is hungry.

Jaipur Pythons are even tempered creatures and have only been known to act strangely when they have eaten too much fermented fruit. The snakes build their homes close to a source of fresh water. The snake swims in lakes and rivers, but will only consume vegetative matter such as water lily bulbs.