Cylindrophis
Cylindrophis | |
---|---|
C. maculatus
| |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Suborder: | Serpentes |
Superfamily: | Booidea |
Family: | Cylindrophiidae Fitzinger, 1843 |
Genus: | Cylindrophis Wagler, 1828[1] |
Synonyms | |
The Cylindrophiidae are a
Geographic range
Cylindrophis are found in southeastern Asia from
Description
All members of the genus Cylindrophis share the following five characteristics: 1) a relatively blunt head, not distinct from the neck, with minute eyes and a mental groove; 2) the absence of well-developed ventral scales, with ventral scales only slightly larger than or equal in size to the dorsal scales; (3) the presence of a pair of pelvic spurs in both sexes; (4) a very short tail, often with conspicuous ventral coloration; and (5) contrasting light and dark ventral blotching.[4]
The body is cylindrical, with a near-uniform diameter, which leads to the name "pipe snakes". All species are small- to medium-sized, with total lengths ranging from 12.5 cm (5 inches) to 85.7 cm (34 inches).[4]
The teeth are moderate and subequal, with 10–12 in each
Behavior and ecology
When threatened, Cylindrophis flatten the posterior portion of their body and arch it above the ground to display their conspicuous ventral pattern, while the head remains concealed among the body coils.[4] Only one species, C. yamdena, lacks a bold ventral pattern in most individuals, having instead an orange-pink belly without bands or spots.[9]
Little is known of the foraging or mating behavior of Cylindrophis. At least one species uses constriction to subdue its prey,[10][11] which include elongate vertebrates: reptiles (snakes), amphibians (caecilians), and fish (eels).[10][12] Prey are swallowed from one end using rotational movements of the braincase and mandibles, a process that takes up to 30 minutes for larger prey.[13] This is distinct from the 'pterygoid walk' used by most other species of alethinophidian snakes, which have greater mobility of most skull bones than Cylindrophis.
Species
The genus Cylindrophis contains the following 14 species.
Species[2] | Taxon author[2] | Common name[2] | Geographic range[1][2][7][3][4] |
---|---|---|---|
C. aruensis
|
Boulenger, 1920 | Aru cylinder snake | Aru Islands
|
C. boulengeri
|
Roux, 1911 | Boulenger's pipe snake | Timor-Leste
|
C. burmanus | Smith, 1943 | Burmese pipe snake | Myanmar |
C. engkariensis | Stuebing, 1994 | Engkari pipe snake | Malaysia: Borneo (Sarawak) |
C. isolepis
|
Boulenger, 1896 | Jampea Island pipe snake | Indonesia: Jampea Island |
C. jodiae | Amarasinghe, Ineich, Campbell, & Hallermann, 2015 | Jodi's pipe snake | central Vietnam, China |
C. lineatus
|
Dennys, 1880 | Blanford's pipe snake | Indonesia: Borneo, and Malaysia: Sarawak |
C. maculatus
|
(Linnaeus, 1758) | Ceylonese cylinder snake | Sri Lanka |
C. melanotus
|
Wagler, 1828 | black pipe snake | Batjan
|
C. opisthorhodus
|
Boulenger, 1897 | island pipe snake | Indonesia: Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo and Flores. |
C. osheai | Kieckbusch, Mader, Kaiser, & Mecke, 2018 | O’Shea's pipe snake, Boano pipe snake | Indonesia: Boano |
C. ruffusT | (Laurenti, 1768) | red-tailed pipe snake | Sula Islands )
|
C. slowinskii | Bernstein, Bauer, McGuire, Arida, Kaiser, Kieckbusch, & Mecke, 2020[14] | Slowinski's pipe snake | Myanmar: Kachin state |
C. subocularis | Kieckbusch, Mecke, Hartmann, Ehrmantraut, O’Shea, & Kaiser, 2016 | Indonesia: south-central Java | |
C. yamdena | Smith & Sidik, 1998 | Yamdena pipe snake | Yamdena Island
|
T: Type species.[1]
Phylogenetic relationships
Many recent studies based on molecular data suggest that Cylindrophiidae may be paraphyletic with respect to another family of pipesnakes,
Probably this will be resolved by including Anomochilidae within Cylindrophiidae in the future, but as of May 2018 no formal proposal to do so has been made.In a broader sense, Cylindrophiidae & Anomochilidae are most closely related to Uropeltidae, a family of burrowing snakes from southern India & Sri Lanka. These three families are together called the Uropeltoidea and probably last shared a common ancestor in the Eocene, about 45 million years ago. Uropeltoids are probably most closely related to pythonoids,[18] and then to booids. These three groups probably last shared a common ancestor in the late Cretaceous, about 75 million years ago.[16]
References
- ^ ISBN 1-893777-01-4(volume).
- ^ a b c d e f g Uetz, Peter. "Cylindrophiidae at The Reptile Database". The Reptile Database. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
- ^ a b c d Amarasinghe, A. A. T.; Campbell, P. D.; Hallermann, J.; Sidik, I.; Supriatna, J.; Ineich, I. (2015). "Two new species of the genus Cylindrophis Wagler, 1828 (Squamata: Cylindrophiidae) from Southeast Asia" (PDF). Amphibian and Reptile Conservation. 9: 34–51. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-11-24.
- ^ PMID 27394478.
- ^ Iskandar, D. T. (1998). "The biogeography of Cylindrophis (Cylindrophidae, Ophidia) in the Wallacean Region". Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Eastern Indonesian-Australian Vertebrate Fauna: 32–38.
- ^ Smith, M. A. (1943). The Fauna of British India. Volume III. Serpentes (PDF). London: Taylor & Francis. pp. 94–98.
- ^ ISBN 9781138034006.
- ^ Boulenger GA. 1893. Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume I., Containing the Families ... Ilysiidæ ... London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiii + 448 pp. + Plates I-XXVIII. (Genus Cylindrophis, pp. 134-135).
- ^ Smith, L.; Sidik, I. (1998). "Description of a new species of Cylindrophis (Serpentes: Cylindrophiidae) from Yamdena Island, Tanimbar Archipelago, Indonesia". Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. 46: 419–424.
- ^ a b Kupfer, A.; Gower, D. J.; Himstedt, W. (2003). "Field observations on the predation of the caecilian amphibian, genus Ichthyophis (Fitzinger, 1826), by the red-tailed pipe snake Cylindrophis ruffus (Laurenti, 1768)" (PDF). Amphibia-Reptilia. 24: 201–234.
- PMID 635575.
- ^ Priyadashana, T. S.; Jayasooriya, A.; Wijewardana, I. H. (2016). "Cylindrophis maculata (pipesnake) diet". Herpetological Review. 47: 145–146.
- .
- PMID 33056720.
- PMID 27603205.
- ^ PMID 26475614.
- .
- ^ PMID 24315866. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2015-12-02. Retrieved 2018-05-13.