Definition of "krait" []

• Any of several highly venomous snakes of the genus Bungarus of southeast Asia and adjacent islands, having a generally black body with brightly colored bands. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The next cell held three krait—creatures with reptilian heads and human torsos and serpent abdomens."
• "At sight of the group, the krait raised their neck frills and hissed angrily."
• "Divided into sections (the Americas, Australasia, Asia, Africa, Europe), it provides natural history images painstakingly rendered by artists over centuries, which depict new forms of flora and fauna that the European world was just discovering - from the banded krait (a snake) to the white-tailed gnu."