We describe a new species of coralsnake from northern Dinagat Island, southeastern Philippines. The discovery of this new species comes as a surprise because it is phenotypically distinct from all other Philippine coralsnakes and has a close phylogenetic affinity to the blue coralsnakes of the Sunda Shelf. The new species is distinguished from all Philippine and other Southeast Asian taxa by its large body size and ventral scale counts; its black head and neck; an alternating, broadly banded color pattern of black and off-white; and a bright orange tail. We use DNA sequence data to investigate the phylogenetic placement of the new species and that of several other populations of Philippine coralsnakes with respect to other Southeast Asian and Australasian elapids. Our results corroborate the uniqueness of the new species with respect to all other Philippine and Sundaic taxa, including the species most closely related to it: Calliophis bivirgatus, C. bilineatus, C. philippinus, and C. suluensis. We summarize phylogenetic, biogeographic, and phenotypic character data that substantiate the elevation of Philippine species of Calliophis(formerly considered subspecies of C. intestinalis: C. bilineatus, C. philippinus, and C. suluensis) and Hemibungarus(formerly subspecies of H. calligaster: H. calligaster, H. gemianulis, and H. mcclungi) to the level of full species. The allopatric distributions of these taxa emphasize the systematic and biogeographical significance of the newly discovered taxon: a poorly understood and independent colonization of the Philippine Archipelago by elapid snakes.
Keywords:Calliophis salitan, Caraga Region, Mindanao PAIC, new species, false coralsnakes
Calliophis salitan adult male holotype (PNM 9844, formerly KU 310164; 997 mm total length [TL]), illustrated by E.F. Jones.
Calliophis salitan sp. nov.
Etymology.— The specific epithet is a noun in apposition and is derived from the Tagalog (Filipino) term salitan, meaning‘‘alternating,’’in reference to the distinctive, alternating black and off-white banded color pattern characteristic of the new species. Suggested English common name: Dinagat Island Banded Coralsnakes.
Habitat, distribution, and natural history.— The only known locality for Calliophis salitan is the low foothill of Mt. Cambinlia, Barangay Santiago, Municipality Loreto, Dinagat Island (Fig. 8), Philippines, where it was collected from an elevation of 195 m. This locality, dominated by selectively logged, regenerating second-growth forest, is situated at the northern end of the island, and has a tropical climate, with a mean annual precipitation of 3580 mm (recorded at Loreto town proper,,1 km from the type locality; higher precipitation values are possible at higher elevations on Mount Cambinlia). Precipitation is highest during December (~539 mm) and lowest in August (averaging 143 mm),and the mean annual temperature is 278C. The type specimen was collected between 1900 and 2200 h, and was actively crawling along a stream bed with reduced water flow between intermittent pools. The specimen was obtained at the end of July, toward the end of the dry season.
Rafe M. Brown, Utpal Smart, Alan E. Leviton, and Eric N. Smith. 2018. A New Species of Long-glanded Coralsnake of the Genus Calliophis (Squamata: Elapidae) from Dinagat Island, with Notes on the Biogeography and Species Diversity of Philippine Calliophis and Hemibungarus. Herpetologica. In-Press. DOI: 10.1655/Herpetologica-D-17-00008
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شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
The Cobra-Preta (black snake in Portuguese) of Sao Tomé Island in the Gulf of Guinea has historically been referred to as Naja (Boulengerina) melanoleuca (Squamata: Elapidae). Its presence on the island has been traditionally explained as an introduction from the mainland by Portuguese settlers, supposedly to control the rat population. This explanation has been widely accepted by local authorities and even international conservation agencies. The taxonomic identity of this snake has remained undisputed by all taxonomists who have published about it, with the exception of L. Capocaccia in 1961. Arguments supporting the human introduction hypothesis are weak and are contradicted by historical, morphological and molecular data. Further, the biogeographic history of the Gulf of Guinea oceanic islands and recent insights on the taxonomic identity and evolutionary history of other taxonomic groups occurring there suggest that the Cobra-Preta, in fact, represents a distinct lineage of the melanoleuca group, endemic to São Tomé. We here describe the Cobra Preta as a new species. The new species differs from N. (B.) melanoleuca, its sister species, by a distinct coloration ventral pattern and the type of contact of the sublingual scales. Data on the toxicology, distribution, ecology, folklore and conservation status of the new species are presented.
FIGURE 5. Live picture of Naja(Boulengerina)peroescobari sp nov. from near Santa Josefina. Specimen not collected. Photo by Tiziano Pisoni.
Luis M. P. Ceríaco,Mariana P. Marques,Andreas Schmitz andAaron M. Bauer. 2017. The “Cobra-preta” of São Tomé Island, Gulf of Guinea, is A New Species of Naja Laurenti, 1768 (Squamata: Elapidae). Zootaxa. 4324(1); 121–141. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4324.1.7
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شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
We describe a distinctive new subspecies of sea snake from the occasionally anoxic inner-basin waters of Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica, based on combined data garnered between 2010 and 2017 for 154 specimens, 123 free-ranging and 31 museum-held. The yellow sea snake, Hydrophis platurus xanthos Bessesen & Galbreath, subsp. n., is diagnosed by a notably smaller body size and nearly uniform yellow coloration, which contrasts with the black and yellow striae and tail spots or bands typical of the species. Within the modest geographic range (circa 320 km2), nearly all specimens possess both diagnostic character states. Bathymetrics appear to restrict genetic flow between this allopatric population and conspecifics in the broader Eastern Pacific. In perspicuous contrast to typical H. platurus, H. p. xanthos shows no association with drift lines, and feeds at night in turbulent waters, assuming a sinusoidal ambush posture never previously reported for the species. This evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) warrants taxonomic recognition and active protection.
Keywords: Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica, sea snake, yellow color morph, platurus, type specimens, taxonomy
Figure 2: Hydrophis platurus xanthos sharply contrasts typical H. platurus in color, body size and behavior. A Scaled size comparison of yellow sea snake, TL 43 cm (left), and yellow-bellied sea snake, TL 69 cm (right; note the use of Vetrap as a calming mask and sickly condition of the specimen) B ambush posture of H. p. xanthos; floating at the sea surface at night in a sinusoidal shape, head below, mouth agape C although predominantly yellow, xanthic individuals often possess black spots along the dorsum.
Hydrophis platurus xanthos subsp. n.
Diagnosis: Here we describe a new, allopatric subspecies, Hydrophis platurus xanthos subsp. n., or yellow sea snake, from the inner basin of Costa Rica’s Golfo Dulce. The new subspecies is diagnosed based on a dramatic color character state, as well as by a marked difference in body size. Aspects of behavior also appear to be unique.
Etymology: From Greek xanthos, “yellow,” to highlight a diagnostic feature of this subspecies.
Geographic distribution: The breeding population of Hydrophis platurus xanthos appears confined to approximately 320 sq.km. in the northern half of the Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica. A spatial gap up to 22 km separates the yellow sea snakes from the usually bi- or tricolored oceanic population, and appears to restrict genetic exchange (Bessesen 2012, Fig. 1).
Conclusions
Hydrophis platurus xanthos is a well-defined evolutionary subspecies inhabiting a small area of unusual geography. Given unique aspects of its behavioral ecology, it could well represent an intrinsically genetically isolated taxon of recent origin, in which case a species designation would be appropriate. We have been appropriately conservative here, in defining it at a subspecific level. This provides footing for protective strategies, while allowing future research to refine its taxonomic rank.
Brooke L. Bessesen and Gary J. Galbreath. 2017. A New Subspecies of Sea Snake, Hydrophis platurus xanthos, from Golfo Dulce, Costa Rica. ZooKeys. 686: 109-123. DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.686.12682
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شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
A new species of elapid snake of the genus Micrurus is described herein, from the states of Rondônia and Mato Grosso, in the western Brazilian Amazon. The new species has a single anal plate, a unique characteristic shared with members of the M. hemprichii species group. It can be distinguished from the other members of this group by having a parietal reddish band in juveniles (absent in adults) and the absence of brownish or orange-yellow dorsal body bands. In addition, this species is distinguished from M. hemprichii by its lower number of body triads, and from M. ortoni by its lower numbers of ventrals and subcaudals scales.
Body dorsum (A) and venter (B) of Micrurus boicora sp. n. (IBSP 77.772, paratype) from the municipality of Cacoal, Rondônia, Brazil.
Figure 4. Photographs of live individuals in the Micrurus hemprichii group. Body dorsum (A) and venter (B) of Micrurus boicora sp. n. (IBSP 77.772, paratype) from the municipality of Cacoal, Rondônia, Brazil; body dorsum (C) of Micrurus hemprichii (unvouchered, photographed by M. A. Passos) from the municipality of Itaituba, Pará, Brazil; body dorsum (D) of Micrurus ortoni (the “rondonianus” form, unvouchered) from the municipality of Cacoal, Rondônia, Brazil.
Micrurus boicora sp. n.
Micrurus hemprichii nec (Jan, 1858) – Bernarde & Abe, 2006
Micrurus hemprichii nec (Jan, 1858) – Turci & Bernarde, 2008
Micrurus sp. nov. – Bernarde et al. 2012
Diagnosis and comparisons: Micrurus boicora can be distinguished from all congeners by the following combination of characters: cloacal plate single; narrow parietal reddish band in juveniles present (absent in adults); body triads 5; brownish or orange-yellow dorsal body bands absent; white body rings equidistantly arranged, more than 11 ventral scales apart; red gular region; with red spots on belly triads; ventrals 155–166; subcaudals 19–23.
....
Etymology: The specific epithet boicora is a Tupi-Guarani name (mbóî = snake; corá = coral), employed herein as a noun in apposition alluding to the coral coloration of the new species. Many Amerindians and peasants in Brazil collectively name true coralsnakes and their mimics as “Boicorá”.
Paulo Sérgio Bernarde, Luiz Carlos Batista Turci, Arthur Diesel Abegg and Francisco Luís Franco. 2018. A Remarkable New Species of Coralsnake of the Micrurus hemprichii species group from the Brazilian Amazon. SALAMANDRA.54(4); 249-258.
Resumo:Uma nova espécie de serpente elapídea do gênero Micrurus é descrita aqui, proveniente dos estados de Rondônia e Mato Grosso, no oeste da Amazônia Brasileira. A nova espécie possui placa anal simples, uma característica unicamente compartilhada entre os membros do grupo de espécies M. hemprichii. Ela é diagnosticável dos outros membros desse grupo por possuir banda parietal avermelhada em juvenis (ausente em adultos) e ausência de bandas dorsais corporais amareladas ou laranjas. Além disso, essa espécie distingue-se de M. hemprichii pelo menor número de tríades corporais, e de M. ortoni pelo menor número de escamas ventrais e subcaudais.
Palavras-chave. Squamata, Serpentes, Elapidae, Floresta Amazônica, padrão de coloração, morfologia externa, Região Neotropical.
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شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
Bandy-bandies (genus Vermicella) are small (50–100cm) black and white burrowing elapids with a highly specialised diet of blindsnakes (Typhlopidae). There are currently 5 recognized species in the genus, all located in Australia, with Vermicella annulata the most encountered species with the largest distribution. Morphological and mitochondrial analyses of specimens collected from the Weipa area, Cape York, Queensland reveal the existence of a new species, which we describe as Vermicella parscauda sp. nov. Mitochondrial DNA analysis (16S and ND4) and external morphological characteristics indicate that the closest relatives of the new species are not V. annulata, which also occurs on Cape York, but rather species from Western Australia and the Northern Territory (V. intermedia and V. multifasciata) which, like V. parscauda, occupy monsoon habitats. Internasal scales are present in V. parscauda sp. nov., similar to V. annulata, but V. intermedia and V. multifasciata do not have nasal scales. V. parscauda sp. nov. has 55–94 black dorsal bands and mottled or black ventral scales terminating approximately 2/3rds of the body into formed black rings, suggesting that hyper-banding is a characteristic of the tropical monsoon snakes (V. intermedia, V.multifasciata and V. parscauda). The confined locality, potential habitat disruption due to mining activities, and scarcity of specimens indicates an urgent conservation concern for this species.
FIGURE 1. Dorsal and head view of Vermicella parscaudasp. nov. holotype QM J95678. Male collected from boat ramp Weipa, Cape York, Queensland, in August 2014 by FJ Vonk and BG Fry.
Vermicella parscauda sp. nov. Etymology. The specific epithet is modified from the Latin words pars (part) and cauda (tail) in reference to the tail length and formed bands on the tail.
Chantelle M. Derez, Kevin Arbuckle, Zhiqiang Ruan, Bing Xie, Yu Huang, Lauren Dibben, Qiong Shi, Freek J. Vonk and Bryan G. Fry. 2018. A New Species of Bandy-bandy (Vermicella: Serpentes: Elapidae) from the Weipa Region, Cape York, Australia. Zootaxa. 4446(1); 1–12. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4446.1.1
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
A new species of the coral snake genus Sinomicrurus is described based on four specimens from southern Hainan Island (three specimens from Tianchi, Jianfengling National Nature Reserve, one specimen from Diaoluoshan National Nature Reserve), Hainan Province, China. Morphologically, the new species is rather similar to Sinomicrurus kelloggi. However, it is distinct from S. kelloggi by the pattern on the head, the head length, head length/width, the number of infralabial scales, number of bands on dorsal body, and number of blotches on the belly.
Figure 5 Sinomicrurus houi sp. nov. preyed on juveniles of Dinodon rufozonatum in captivity.
Photo by Hang Yang and Wei Li.
Figure 3 Dorsal head views of Sinomicrurus houi sp. nov.: holotype HUM20170001 (A), paratypes Re5410, CIB108251, HUM20170004 (B, C, D), morphological transition type from Vietnam (Orlov et al., 2003) and Yunnan (Sun et al., 2016) (E, F) and typical Sinomicrurus kelloggi from Yunnan Province (Wang et al., 2015) and Anhui (Chen et al., 2013). (G, H).
Photos by Lifang Peng and Diancheng Yang (A, B, C, D).
Sinomicrurus houi sp. nov. Wang, Peng and Huang
Suggest English name: Hou’s coral snake.
Suggest Chinese name: 海南华珊瑚蛇 (Hǎi Nán Huá Shān Hú Shé).
Etymology: The species name is a patronym honoring Mian HOU (Sichuan Normal University, China), a modern herpetological enthusiast and naturalist. He has been contributing substantially to the taxonomy and life history of amphibians and reptiles for 20 years. He collected 3 of the 4 type specimens.
Diagnosis: Sinomicrurus houi sp. nov. differs from the known five congeners by a combination of the following characters: 1) dorsal scale rows (DSC) 15: 15: 15, smooth throughout; 2) ventrals (VL) 173–183; 3) subcaudals (SC) 27–38; 4) head relatively elongated, head length (HL) 2.0–2.1 times as long as head width (HW); 5) no loreal; 6) supralabials (SL) 7/7, infralabials (IL) 7/7; 7) dorsal surface scarlet, with 16–19 edged yellowish black bands on trunk of body, 2–4 on tail; 8) numbers of ventral spots 34–42; 9) dorsum of head having a narrow white broadwise band in the forefront of head (covering almost all the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th supralabials, preoculars, and continuing through forefront prefrontals) and two symmetric white stripes appearing a Chinese symbol for the figure eight (“ 八 ”, from both sides of frontal to neck sides and gradually widening); 10) maxillary teeth behind the fangs present.
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Figure 4 The habitat of Sinomicrurus houisp. nov. on Tianchi, Jianfengling National Nature Reserve, Ledong County: A: The holistic habitat; B and D: the microhabitat; C: The microhabitat on the side of a stream where S. houi sp. nov. was found hunting.
Photos by Mian Hou.
Distribution The new species is currently known from the National Nature Reserves of Diaoluoshan, Jianfengling and Wuzhishan (Chu and Huang, 1990; Zhao, 2004; Wang, 2014), Hainan Province, China.
Natural HistorySinomicrurus houi sp. nov. is a nocturnal terrestrial snake, living in the forest floor of montane rain forest, usually hidden in deciduous or humic layers very close to streams or ditches. It feeds primarily on snakes, consuming small snakes and the juveniles of snakes which live in the same habitats, such as Indotyphlops braminus, Argyrophis diardii, Hebius popei and H. boulengeri etc., presumably they also prey on grass lizards and skinks, and may also feed on the sleeping juveniles of Acanthosaura lepidogaster and Pseduocalotes microlepis resting on the roots of bushwoods. In captivity, they catch actively and feed on juveniles of Dinodon rufozonatum (Figure 5), Xenochrophisflavipunctatus, Pantherophis guttatus and skinks).
Lifang Peng, Lijun Wanf, Li Ding, Yiwu Zhu, Jian Luo, Diancheng Yang, Ruyi Huang, Shunqing Lu and Song Huang. 2018. A New Species of the Genus Sinomicrurus Slowinski, Boundy and Lawson, 2001 (Squamata: Elapidae) from Hainan Province, China. Asian Herpetological Research. 9(2); 65-73. DOI: 10.16373/j.cnki.ahr.170090
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شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
Cobras are among the most widely known venomous snakes, and yet their taxonomy remains incompletely understood, particularly in Africa. Here, we use a combination of mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequences and morphological data to diagnose species limits within the African forest cobra, Naja (Boulengerina) melanoleuca. Mitochondrial DNA sequences reveal deep divergences within this taxon. Congruent patterns of variation in mtDNA, nuclear genes and morphology support the recognition of five separate species, confirming the species status of N. subfulva and N. peroescobari, and revealing two previously unnamed West African species, which are described as new: Naja (Boulengerina) guineensis sp. nov.Broadley, Trape, Chirio, Ineich & Wüster, from the Upper Guinea forest of West Africa, and Naja (Boulengerina) savannula sp. nov.Broadley, Trape, Chirio & Wüster, a banded form from the savanna-forest mosaic of the Guinea and Sudanian savannas of West Africa. The discovery of cryptic diversity in this iconic group highlights our limited understanding of tropical African biodiversity, hindering our ability to conserve it effectively.
FIGURE 5. Naja (Boulengerina)guineensis sp. nov. Top: holotype, MNHN 1921.0485, dorsal and ventral view and side view of head. Note extensive mottling of throat and anterior ventral side and limited posterior extent of lighter ventral markings. Bottom: live adult specimen measuring approximately 200 cm total length, from Sekondi-Takoradi, Western Region, Ghana, displaying dark suffusion of throat and anterior venter (not preserved; photo L. Chirio).
Naja (Boulengerina) guineensis sp. nov.
Broadley, Trape, Chirio, Ineich & Wüster
Naia melanoleuca (not Hallowell) Boulenger, 1896: 376 (part, var. B [c,d], C).
Diagnosis. Naja guineensis can be distinguished from the partly sympatric N. savannula sp. nov. by lacking extended dorsal banding, often having 17 rather than 19 dorsal scale rows at midbody, a generally lower subcaudal scale count, fewer ventral bands, a lesser posterior extent of the ventral banding, and a strong tendency towards melanism in adults. Specimens with 19 midbody dorsal scale rows can be distinguished from N. melanoleuca through the reduced number of ventral bands, lesser posterior extent of banding and tendency of ontogenetic melanism from N. subfulva in lacking a lighter anterior dorsum and through ontogenetic melanism, and from N. peroescobari in having the posterior chin shields in contact.
Variation. Midbody dorsal scale row counts of 17 and 19 are approximately equally common in this species. In large adults, light pattern elements on the head and throat often become heavily suffused with black pigment, leading to a virtually entirely melanistic snake. Some specimens have 1–4 generally faint or poorly defined light bands across the neck, and occasionally an ocellate hood marking.
Largest recorded: 1818+437 = 2255 mm, from Ballassou, Guinea (IRD 4213.G), but larger specimens have been observed. Based on locality, Menzies’ (1966) report of a specimen measuring “eight feet, eight inches” (264 cm) from Bo, Sierra Leone, is likely to refer to this species.
Etymology. The specific epithet guineensis means “from Guinea” and is chosen to reflect the distribution of the species in the Upper Guinea forests of West Africa, part of the West African Forests biodiversity hotspot (Myers et al., 2000).
Suggested common name. Black forest cobra.
Distribution. The distribution of Naja guineensis appears to be restricted to the Upper Guinea Forests of western Africa, from western Togo to Liberia and Guinea (Trape & Baldé, 2014) (Fig. 6). There is a single record from Contuboel, Guinea Bissau (MBL 535). All other records 10°N or lower.
FIGURE 7.Naja (Boulengerina)savannula sp. nov. Top: holotype, MNHN 2018.0002. Bottom: live specimen from Kindia, Guinea, showing conspicuous, broad dorsal bands and ventral banding, including narrow accessory bands (not vouchered). Photos J.-F. Trape.
Naja (Boulengerina)savannula sp. nov.
Broadley, Trape, Chirio & Wüster
Naia melanoleuca (not Hallowell) Boulenger, 1896: 376 (part, var. D).
Diagnosis: Distinguishable from other species of the N. melanoleuca complex by the presence of 3 to 8 semidivided yellowish or whitish bands on the anterior dorsal forebody, becoming uniform black caudad; venter yellow with 2 to 8 black bands. Generally higher mean subcaudal scale counts than the other species. Genetically diagnosable through possession of unique mitochondrial haplotypes (cytochrome b: GenBank MH337597–602; ND4: MH337403–408) and unique PRLR and UBN1 haplotypes (PRLR: MH337501–504; UBN1: MH337532– 535).
Variation: Dorsal scale rows on neck 19–25, at midbody 19, before vent 12–15; ventrals 211–233, subcaudals 63–77 (Table 8). Dorsal semi-divided yellow bands 3–8; ventral principal black bands 2–8 (Fig. 7).
Largest recorded: 1825+405 = 2230 mm, from Medina Djikoye, Senegal (IRD 6155.S).
Etymology: The name is derived from the contraction of its savanna habitat and annulated colour pattern and was coined by Barry Hughes in an unpublished 1968 manuscript. We have retained this name at the request of our colleague Barry Hughes.
Suggested common name: West African banded cobra.
Distribution: Senegal and Gambia east to northern Cameroon (Fig. 6). Naja savannula appears to be restricted to gallery forest areas in Africa in Guinean Forest/Savanna Mosaic, extending northwards into West Sudanian Savanna (Chirio, 2003, 2013; Monasterio et al., 2016). Our records are mostly from latitudes 10–14°N, except in the Dahomey Gap in eastern Ghana and Benin, where the species approaches the Gulf of Guinea Coast. The eastern extent of the range is poorly understood. A specimen from Margui Wandala district, northern Cameroon (approx. 10.5°N 13.6°E; MNHN 1962.0022) appears to be assignable to this species, and one of us (JFT) recently collected a specimen from Mboura, 20 km SW Baïbokoum, Logone Oriental Province, Chad (7.598°N, 15.596°E; IRD 2281.N), and there is a recent record from near Niamey, Niger (LC, unpublished data). It seems likely that the species has a wider distribution in northern Cameroon, extreme southern Chad and possibly even extreme northwestern Central African Republic (CAR).
FIGURE 6. Distribution of the five species of the Najamelanoleuca complex.
FIGURE 5. Naja (Boulengerina)guineensis sp. nov. Top: holotype, MNHN 1921.0485, dorsal and ventral view and side view of head. Note extensive mottling of throat and anterior ventral side and limited posterior extent of lighter ventral markings. Bottom: live adult specimen measuring approximately 200 cm total length, from Sekondi-Takoradi, Western Region, Ghana, displaying dark suffusion of throat and anterior venter (not preserved; photo L. Chirio).
FIGURE 7.Naja (Boulengerina)savannula sp. nov. Top: holotype, MNHN 2018.0002. Bottom: live specimen from Kindia, Guinea, showing conspicuous, broad dorsal bands and ventral banding, including narrow accessory bands (not vouchered). Photos J.-F. Trape.
FIGURE 8.Naja (Boulengerina) melanoleuca. Adult specimens from Yaoundé, Cameroon (left—photo J.-F. Trape) and Tsibilé, Gabon (right—photo L. Chirio). Note the diffuse but distinct hood mark that is often present in this species, and the combination of broad main bands and narrow accessory bands on the ventral side.
Naia haie var. melanoleuca Hallowell, 1857, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia: 61.
Type locality: Gabon, syntypes ANSP 6875–76, 6878–79.
Naja haje var. leucosticta Fischer, 1885, Jahr. Hamburg. Wiss. Anst. 2: 115, pl. v, fig. 11. Type locality: Cameroon and Ogooué River, Gabon, syntypes ZMH 4280, 7048, 7299–7302.
Naia melanoleuca; Boulenger, 1896: 376 (part, vars. A [a,b] & B [a,b])
Naja melanoleuca melanoleuca; Laurent, 1956: 290, pl. xxvi, fig. 2.
Naja (Boulengerina) melanoleuca; Wallach et al., 2009.
Boulengerina melanoleuca; Wallach et al., 2014: 122.
Aspidelaps bocagei Sauvage, 1884: 204 (type locality: Gabon and Majumba; holotype MNHN 1884.0015) has been listed as a synonym of N. melanoleuca (e.g., Broadley, 1983; Wallach et al., 2014; Ceríaco et al., 2017), but is in fact a synonym of Naja annulata, as is evident from Sauvage’s description, which notes approximately 20 dark double bands along the entire body length, and 21 mid-dorsal scale rows (see also Schmidt, 1923).
Diagnosis:Dorsum black, often with 1–3 semidivided yellow crossbands on the neck, the first may be an ocellus; venter yellow with 4 to 6 black bands in the first 100 ventrals, thereafter uniform black.
Variation: Dorsal scale rows on neck 19–27, at midbody 19 (very rarely 17 or 21); ventrals 209–230; subcaudals 59–74 (Table 8). Supralabials 7, the third and fourth entering the orbit; infralabials 8, the first four in contact with the anterior sublinguals, no cuneate; preocular 1; postoculars 3 (very rarely 2 or 4); temporals 1+2 or 1+3; nuchals bordering temporals 5–9, usually 7.
Colouration: Head brown, the supralabials barred black and yellow, chin yellow. Black above, sometimes a yellow monocellate marking on the hood, or 1–3 small yellow blotches, the dorsal scales may be tipped with white in juveniles (Fig. 8). Yellow or white below with 4 to 6 black bands on the first 100 ventrals, usually uniform black thereafter.
Largest recorded: 2250+420 = 2670 mm, from Moniya, Ibadan, Nigeria (Butler, 1982: 110).
Suggested common name: Central African forest cobra.
Distribution: Centered on the Congo Basin, west to southwestern Nigeria and possibly southern Benin, south to northern Angola, not extending east of the Albertine Rift Valley, where it is replaced by N. subfulva. The western range limits are poorly understood. Populations from southeastern Nigeria are clearly assignable to this form. A few specimens from Lamta, southern Benin (IRD 12.B, IRD 54.B, IRD 60.B), and Ghana (MNHN 1983.0663–64; no further locality information) also appear to be assignable to N. melanoleuca.
Naja (Boulengerina) subfulva Laurent, 1955
Suggested common name. Brown forest cobra.
Diagnosis. Midbody scale rows 19, except along coastal regions of East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania), where most specimens have 17 rows. Pattern highly variable. Adults of most populations distinguishable in having a brown forebody, often with spots, generally becoming darker or blackish posteriorly. Labial pattern may be attenuated in many adults. Venter with several black, dark brown or greyish crossbands on the first 50 ventrals, gradually becoming uniform black caudad in some populations, but often remaining entirely light, often with extensive darker spotting or speckling. Where present, the light forebody and/or light posterior venter are diagnostic for this species. Generally fewer ventral bands and ventral scales than N. melanoleuca or N. savannula and fewer subcaudals than N. savannula (Table 8). Genetically diagnosable through possession of unique mitochondrial haplotypes (cyt b: GenBank MH337603–633; ND4: MH337409–439) and unique PRLR and UBN1 haplotypes (PRLR: MH337441–471; UBN1: MH337531, MH337536–562, MH337564–566).
Variation. Dorsal scale rows on neck 19–27, at midbody 19 (very rarely 17 or 21); ventrals 196–226; anal entire; subcaudals 55–71 (Table 8). Supralabials 7 (very rarely 5 or 6), the third and fourth entering orbit; infralabials 8 (rarely 7), the first four (rarely three) in contact with the anterior sublinguals, no cuneate (very rarely one); preocular 1; postoculars 3; temporal 1+2 or 1+3; temporal bordering parietals 5–9, usually 7.
Naja (Boulengerina) peroescobari Ceríaco et al., 2017
Diagnosis. In the original description, Naja peroescobari was diagnosed from the other members of the N. melanoleuca group through a lack of white ventrals posterior to ventral 22, a lack of lighter markings on the dorsum, and the separation of the posterior chin shields. Our sample does not fully support the diagnostic value of these characters: at least one specimen (BMNH 1906.3.30.80) has the posterior chin shields in contact, and discrete dark bands separated by lighter bands (although often suffused with dark brown pigment) extend as far back as ventrals 45 and 55, respectively, in BMNH 1906.3.30.80 and MBL 1954. Naja peroescobari is distinct from N. subfulva in never having a brown forebody or a light posterior venter and in lacking dark speckling or spotting on the forebody. It displays greatly reduced ventral banding compared to N. melanoleuca and N. savannula, and, unlike N. guineensis, never has 17 midbody dorsal scale rows.The species is also diagnosable through unique mitochondrial haplotypes (Ceríaco et al., 2017; cyt b: GenBank MH337634; ND4: MH337440) and a unique PRLR haplotype (MH337499)
Variation. See Table 8 and Ceríaco et al. (2017) for variation in scale counts and ventral banding in this species.
Distribution. Restricted to the volcanic island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea, where it seems to inhabit primarily the forested parts of the centre and south of the island, whereas it seems to be missing from the more open northeast (Ceríaco et al., 2017).
Wolfgang Wüster, Laurent Chirio, Jean-François Trape, Ivan Ineich, Kate Jackson , Eli Greenbaum, Cesar Barron, Chifundera Kusamba, Zoltán T. Nagy, Richard Storey, Cara Hall, Catharine E. Wüster, Axel Barlow and Donald G. Broadley. 2018. Integration of Nuclear and Mitochondrial Gene Sequences and Morphology Reveals Unexpected Diversity in the Forest Cobra (Naja melanoleuca) Species Complex in Central and West Africa (Serpentes: Elapidae). Zootaxa.4455(1); 68–98. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4455.1.3
Luis M. P. Ceríaco,Mariana P. Marques,Andreas Schmitz andAaron M. Bauer. 2017. The “Cobra-preta” of São Tomé Island, Gulf of Guinea, is A New Species of Naja Laurenti, 1768 (Squamata: Elapidae). Zootaxa. 4324(1); 121–141. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4324.1.7
كيف تحصل على مدونة جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات من هنا
شاهد قناة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على اليوتيوب لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
رابط مدونة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات في أي وقت حــــتى لو تم حذفها من هنا شاهد صفحة منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بألاف المواضيع والمشاركات على الفيس بوك لمزيد من الشرح من هنا
تعرف على ترتيب مواضيع منتدى مدونات بلوجر جاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات (حتى لا تختلط عليك الامور) من هنا
ملاحظة هامة: كل عمليات تنزيل، رفع، وتعديل المواضيع الجاهزة تتم بطريقة آلية، ونعتذر عن اي موضوع مخالف او مخل بالحياء مرفوع بالمدونات الجاهزة بآلاف المواضيع والمشاركات، ولكم ان تقوموا بحذف هذه المواضيع والمشاركات والطريقة بسيطة وسهلة. ــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــسلامـ.
