Telescopus rhinopoma is a species of rear-fanged mildly venomous snake in the family Colubridae. The species is found in the Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia. Common names for T. rhinopoma include Indian desert cat snake, leopard viper, desert cat snake. T. rhinopoma is found in southern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, southwestern Afghanistan, western and northwestern Pakistan. T. rhinopoma may attain a total length of about one meter. Dorsally, it is gray with dark brown blotches. T. rhinopoma is oviparous. Blanford WT. "Descriptions of New Reptilia and Amphibia from Persia and Baluchistán". Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. Fourth Series 14: 31–35... Böhme W. "Further Specimens of the Rare Cat Snake, Telescopus rhinopoma ". Journal of Herpetology 11: 201–205. Boulenger GA. "An Addition to the Ophidian Fauna of India". J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 9: 325.. Boulenger GA. Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum. Volume III. Containing the Colubridæ... London: Trustees of the British Museum.. Xiv + 727 pp. + Plates I-XXV..

Latifi, Mahmoud. The Snakes of Iran. Oxford, Ohio: Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. 156 pp. ISBN 0-916984-22-2.. Smith MA; the Fauna of British India and Burma, Containing the Whole of the Indo-Chinese Sub-region. Reptilia and Amphibia. Vol. III.—Serpentes. London: Secretary of State for India.. Xii + 583 pp

HMS Sturgeon was an S-class submarine that entered service with the Royal Navy in 1932. Ordered in 1930, she was laid down at Chatham Dockyard in January 1931 and launched on 8 January 1932. Commissioned on 27 February 1933, Sturgeon was assigned to the 2nd Submarine Flotilla. At the start of World War II, Sturgeon conducted patrols in the North Sea. On 6 September, she was mistakenly bombed by British aircraft. On her second patrol, she fired three torpedoes at an unidentified submarine, in fact her sister ship HMS Swordfish, but the torpedoes missed. On her third patrol, she missed the German U-boat U-23 and was damaged after hitting the bottom, requiring repairs. On 20 November, she sank the German armed trawler V-209 with torpedoes; the sinking was the first successful attack by a British submarine of the war, was a morale boost for British submariners. During her next patrols in the North Sea, Sturgeon sighted and sank several ships, including the German troop transport Pionier and the Danish merchants SS Sigrun and SS Delfinus.

Afterwards, Sturgeon patrolled in the Bay of Biscay, acted as a beacon during Operation Torch after being again damaged by Allied aircraft, escorted the Arctic Convoys PQ 15 and PQ 17. Sturgeon was transferred to the 8th Submarine Flotilla, which operated on the Mediterranean Sea, in October 1942 to support the Allied landings in North Africa. In May 1943, she was loaned to the Royal Netherlands Navy as HNLMS Zeehond. Zeehond was returned to the Royal Navy following the war and was sold for scrap in 1946, she was one of the four submarines that formed the First Group of the S class, the only one of these to survive the war. The S-class submarines were designed as successors to the L class and were intended to operate in the North and Baltic Seas; the submarines had a length of 202 feet 6 inches overall, a beam of 24 feet 0 inches and a mean draught of 11 feet 11 inches. They displaced 730 long tons on 927 long tons submerged; the S-class submarines had a crew of ratings. They had a diving depth of 300 feet.

For surface running, the boats were powered by two 775-brake-horsepower diesel engines, each driving one propeller shaft. When submerged each propeller was driven by a 650-horsepower electric motor, they could reach 13.75 knots on 10 knots underwater. On the surface, the first-batch boats had a range of 3,700 nautical miles at 10 knots and 64 nmi at 2 knots submerged; the boats were armed with six 21-inch torpedo tubes in the bow. They carried six reload torpedoes for a grand total of a dozen torpedoes, they were armed with a 3-inch deck gun. Ordered on 2 July 1930, Sturgeon was laid down by Chatham Dockyard on 3 January 1931, she was launched on 8 January 1932 and commissioned on 15 December 1932. At the onset of the World War II, Sturgeon was a member of the 2nd Submarine Flotilla. From 23–26 August 1939, the 2nd Submarine Flotilla transferred to their war bases at Dundee and Blyth. On 23 August, Sturgeon departed her homeport of Portland along with her sister ships Spearfish and Swordfish. On 25 August, she commenced patrolling southwest of Norway.

When Britain declared war against Nazi Germany on 1 September, this became Sturgeon's first combat patrol. On 4 September 1939, Sturgeon, on her way to return to Dundee, was erroneously bomber by a British aircraft at 16:20 in position 56°34′N 01°04′W. At 16:42 the aircraft dropped another bomb but Sturgeon was not damaged, arriving the next day at Dundee. Sturgeon departed Dundee on 13 September on her second war patrol, in the same are as the first. On 14 September, Sturgeon sighted an unidentified submarine, thought to be a German U-boat, fired three torpedoes at it in position 56°22′N 01°28′W, south-east of Aberdeen, Scotland; the submarine, in fact the British HMS Swordfish and the torpedoes missed. Sturgeon ended her second war patrol in Dundee on 21 September. On 8 October 1939, Sturgeon left her home port in the Skagerrak strait. On 14 October, she sighted the German U-boat U-23 northwest of Skagen, Denmark in position 57°49′N 09°59′E. All three torpedoes missed their target. Two days on 16 October, Sturgeon hit the bottom at 60 feet depth, damaging her ASDIC dome.

On 21 October, she ended her third patrol at Rosyth. After repairs, Sturgeon left for her fourth patrol, off Heligoland west of Denmark. On 20 November, she sank the German armed trawler V-209 with torpedoes 50 nautical miles northwest of Heligoland in position 54°34′N 06°28′E; the sinking of V-209 was the first successful attack on an enemy ship by a British submarine during the Second World War. On 29 November, Sturgeon ended her fourth war patrol at Blyth. On 13 December 1939, Sturgeon departed. However, she was recalled two days later. On 17 December, she again departed Blyth for her sixth, she was ordered to patrol the area west of Denmark. On 20 December, Sturgeon was ordered to patrol the Skagerrak strait instead, but she was ordered to return to her original patrol area the next day. Sturgeon returned to Blyth on 30 December. After an uneventful seventh war patrol in the North Sea, Sturgeon underwent a refit at Wallsend until 14 April 1940. After shifting back to Blyth, she conducted an uneventful eighth patrol southwest of Stavanger, Norway from 30 April to 11 May 1940.

From 22 May to 5 June, Sturgeon conducted another uneventful patrol northwest of Terschelling, Netherlands. On 9 June, she was ordered to patrol close to the British east coast because of fears tha