Elapidae
Elapidae | |
---|---|
From the top left clockwise: king cobra, oriental coral snake, inland taipan and black mamba | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Suborder: | Serpentes |
Superfamily: | Elapoidea |
Family: | Elapidae F. Boie, 1827 |
Subfamilies and genera[a] | |
Elapidae (
Description
Sea snakes (the Hydrophiinae), sometimes considered to be a separate family, have adapted to a marine way of life in different ways and to various degrees. All have evolved paddle-like tails for swimming and the ability to excrete salt. Most also have laterally compressed bodies, their ventral scales are much reduced in size, their nostrils are located dorsally (no internasal scales), and they give birth to live young (viviparity). The reduction in ventral scaling has greatly diminished their terrestrial mobility, but aids in swimming.
Members of this family have a wide range of sizes.
Dentition
All elapids have a pair of
Behavior
Most elapids are
In general, sea snakes are able to respire through their skin. Experiments with the yellow-bellied sea snake,
Distribution
Terrestrial elapids are found worldwide in tropical and subtropical regions, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere. Most prefer humid tropical environments, though there are many that can still be found in arid environments. Sea snakes occur mainly in the Indian Ocean and the south-west Pacific. They occupy coastal waters and shallows, and are common in coral reefs. However, the range of Hydrophis platurus extends across the Pacific to the coasts of Central and South America.[8]
Venom
Venoms of species in the Elapidae are mainly
The venom of spitting cobras is more cytotoxic rather than neurotoxic. It damages local cells, especially those in eyes, which are deliberately targeted by the snakes. The venom may cause intense pain on contact with the eye and may lead to blindness. It is not lethal on skin if no wound provides any chance for the toxins to enter the bloodstream.[11]
Taxonomy
The table below lists out all of the elapid genera and no subfamilies. In the past, many subfamilies were recognized, or have been suggested for the Elapidae, including the Elapinae, Hydrophiinae (sea snakes), Micrurinae (coral snakes), Acanthophiinae (Australian elapids), and the Laticaudinae (sea kraits). Currently, none are universally recognized. Molecular evidence via techniques like karyotyping, protein electrophoretic analyses, immunological distance and DNA sequencing, suggests reciprocal monophyly of two groups: African, Asian, and New World Elapinae versus Australasian and marine
The type genus for the Elapidae was originally Elaps, but the group was moved to another family. In contrast to what is typical of botany, the family Elapidae was not renamed. In the meantime, Elaps was renamed Homoroselaps and moved back to the Elapidae. However, Nagy et al. (2005) regard it as a sister taxon to Atractaspis, which should have been assigned to the Atractaspididae.
Genus[14] | Taxon author[14] |
Species[14] | Subspecies*[14] | Common name |
Geographic range[8] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Acanthophis | Daudin, 1803 | 8 | 0 | death adders | Australia, New Guinea, Indonesia (Seram Island and Tanimbar) |
Aipysurus | Lacépède, 1804 | 7 | 1 | olive sea snakes | |
Antaioserpens | Wells & Wellington, 1985 | 2 | 0 | burrowing snakes | Australia |
Aspidelaps | Fitzinger, 1843 | 2 | 4 | shieldnose cobras | |
Aspidomorphus | Fitzinger, 1843 | 3 | 3 | collared adders | New Guinea |
Austrelaps | Worrell, 1963 | 3 | 0 | Australian copperheads | Australia (South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania) |
Brachyurophis | Günther, 1863 | 7 | 0 | shovel-nosed snakes | Australia |
Bungarus | Daudin, 1803 | 12 | 4 | kraits | India (incl. , Taiwan, Thailand |
Cacophis | Günther, 1863 | 4 | 0 | rainforest crowned snakes | Australia (New South Wales, Queensland) |
Calliophis | Gray, 1834 | 15 | 11 | Oriental coral snakes | India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Burma, Brunei, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, southern China, Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Taiwan |
Cryptophis | Worrell, 1961 | 5 | 0 | Australia and Papua New Guinea | |
Demansia | Gray, 1842 | 9 | 2 | whipsnakes | New Guinea, continental Australia |
Dendroaspis
|
Schlegel, 1848 | 4 | 1 | mambas | Sub-Saharan Africa |
Denisonia | Krefft, 1869 | 2 | 0 | ornamental snakes | Central Queensland and central northern New South Wales, Australia |
Drysdalia | Worrell, 1961 | 3 | 0 | southeastern grass snakes | Southern Australia (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales) |
Echiopsis | Fitzinger, 1843 | 1 | 0 | bardick | Southern Australia (Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales) |
Elapognathus | Boulenger, 1896 | 2 | 0 | southwestern grass snakes | Western Australia |
Elapsoidea | Bocage, 1866 | 10 | 7 | African or venomous garter snakes (not related to North American garter snakes, which are harmless to humans) | Sub-Saharan Africa |
Emydocephalus | Krefft, 1869 | 3 | 0 | turtlehead sea snakes | The coasts of Timor (Indonesian Sea), New Caledonia, Australia (Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia), and in the Southeast Asian Sea along the coasts of China, Taiwan, Japan, and the Ryukyu Islands |
Ephalophis
|
M.A. Smith, 1931 | 1 | 0 | Grey's mudsnake/ mangrove sea snake | Northwestern Australia |
Furina | A.M.C. Duméril, 1853 | 5 | 0 | pale-naped snakes | Mainland Australia, southern New Guinea, Aru Islands |
Hemachatus
|
Fleming, 1822 | 1 | 0 | rinkhals/ring-necked spitting cobra | South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini |
Hemiaspis | Fitzinger, 1861 | 2 | 0 | swamp snakes | Eastern Australia (New South Wales, Queensland) |
Hemibungarus | W. Peters, 1862 | 3 | 0 | Barred coral snakes | Philippines (Luzon, Panay, Negros, Cebu, Mindoro, Catanduanes, Polillo is.) |
Hoplocephalus | Wagler, 1830 | 3 | 0 | broad-headed snakes | Eastern Australia (New South Wales, Queensland) |
Hydrelaps | Boulenger, 1896 | 1 | 0 | Port Darwin mudsnake | Northern Australia, southern New Guinea |
Hydrophis | Latreille In Sonnini & Latreille, 1801 | 34 | 3 | sea snakes | Indoaustralian and Southeast Asian waters.[15] |
Incongruelaps† | 1 | 0 | Riversleigh, Australia[16]
| ||
Laticauda
|
Laurenti, 1768 | 5 | 0 | sea kraits | Southeast Asian and Indo-Australian waters |
Loveridgelaps | McDowell, 1970 | 1 | 0 | Solomons small-eyed snake | Solomon Islands |
Microcephalophis | Lesson, 1832 | 1 | 0 | narrow-headed sea snake, graceful small-headed slender seasnake, common small-headed sea snake | on the coasts of the Indian Ocean and West Pacific, from around the Persian Gulf (Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Iraq and Kuwait) to Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia, and into the Malay Archipelago/West Pacific in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, southern China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, as well as in Australia (Queensland) and Papua New Guinea |
Micropechis | Boulenger, 1896 | 1 | 0 | New Guinea small-eyed snake | New Guinea |
Micruroides | K.P. Schmidt, 1928 | 1 | 2 | Western coral snakes | United States (Arizona, southwestern New Mexico), Mexico (Sonora, Sinaloa) |
Micrurus | Wagler, 1824 | 83 | 51 | coral snakes | Southern North America, South America |
Naja | Laurenti, 1768 | 39 | 3 | cobras | Africa, Asia |
Neelaps | (A.M.C. Duméril, Bibron & A.H.A. Duméril, 1854) | 2 | 0 | Australia | |
Notechis
|
Boulenger, 1896 | 2 | 0 | tiger snakes | Southern Australia, including many offshore islands |
Ogmodon
|
W. Peters, 1864 | 1 | 0 | bola | Fiji |
Ophiophagus
|
Günther, 1864 | 1 | 0 | King cobra | Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, China, India, Andaman Islands, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, western Malaysia, the Philippines |
Oxyuranus
|
Kinghorn, 1923 | 3 | 2 | taipans | Australia, New Guinea |
Parahydrophis
|
Burger & Natsuno, 1974 | 1 | 0 | Northern mangrove sea snake | Northern Australia, southern New Guinea |
Parapistocalamus | Roux, 1934 | 1 | 0 | Hediger's snake | Bougainville Island, Solomons |
Paroplocephalus | Keogh, Scott & Scanlon, 2000 | 1 | 0 | Lake Cronin snake | Western Australia |
Pseudechis | Wagler, 1830 | 7 | 0 | black snakes (and king brown) | Australia |
Pseudohaje | Günther, 1858 | 2 | 0 | tree cobras | Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Nigeria |
Pseudonaja | Günther, 1858 | 8 | 2 | venomous brown snakes (and dugites) | Australia |
Rhinoplocephalus | F. Müller, 1885 | 1 | 0 | Müller's snake | Western Australia |
Salomonelaps | McDowell, 1970 | 1 | 0 | Solomons coral snake | Solomon Islands |
Simoselaps | Jan, 1859 | 13 | 3 | Australian coral snakes | Mainland Australia |
Sinomicrurus | Slowinski, Boundy & Lawson, 2001 | 8 | 6 | Asia | |
Suta | Worrell, 1961 | 11 | 0 | hooded snakes (and curl snake) | Australia |
Thalassophis
|
P. Schmidt, 1852 | 1 | 0 | anomalous sea snake | South Chinese Sea (Malaysia, Gulf of Thailand), Indian Ocean (Sumatra, Java, Borneo) |
Toxicocalamus | Boulenger, 1896 | 11 | 0 | New Guinea forest snakes | New Guinea (and nearby islands) |
Tropidechis
|
Günther, 1863 | 1 | 0 | rough-scaled snake | Eastern Australia |
Vermicella | Gray in Günther, 1858 | 6 | 0 | bandy-bandies | Australia |
Walterinnesia | Lataste, 1887 | 2[17] | 0 | black desert cobra | Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey[18] |
* Not including the nominate subspecies
Conservation
With the dangers the taxa presents given their venomous nature it is very difficult for activists and conservationists alike to get species on protection lists such as the IUCN red-list and CITES Apenndix lists. Some of the protected species are:
- Vulnerable:
- Ophiophagus hannah(King cobra)
- Austrelaps labialis(Pygmy copperhead)
- Denisonia maculate (Ornamental snake)
- Echiopsis atriceps(Lake Cronin snake)
- E. curta (Bardick)
- Furina dunmalli(Dunmall's snake)
- Hoplocephalus bungaroides (Broad-headed snake)
- Ogmodon vitianus (Fiji snake)
- Lower Risk/Near threatened:
- Elapognathus minor(Short-nosed snake)
- Simoselaps calonotus(Black-striped snake)
This however does not touch the number of elapidae that are under threat, for instance 9% of elapid sea snakes are threatened with another 6% near-threatened.[19] A rather large road block that stands in the way of more species being put under protection is lack of knowledge of the taxa; many known species have little research done on their behaviors or actual population as they live in very remote areas or live in habitats that are so vast its nearly impossible to conduct population studies, like the sea snakes.
See also
- List of snake genera, overview of all snake families and genera
Explanatory notes
- ^ The elapids in the past were considered to have two subfamilies–the Elapinae made of terrestrial species and Hydrophiinae made of the marine species.[1] In 1997, Slowinski, Knight and Rooney found in their phylogenetic analysis using amino acid sequences from venom proteins, that the Australasian terrestrial species nested within Hydrophiinae. This led to removing the Australasian terrestrial species and placing them in the Hydrophiinae.[2][1] This has been support in subsequent recent genomic analyses, though these same studies also found the subfamily Elapinae to be paraphyletic in respect to the Hydrophiinae.[3][4][5] These studies have found coral snakes, cobras and mambas, kraits, and African gartersnakes forming successive outgroups to Hydrophiinae.[4][5] Since there are available clade names for these groups (with the exception of Elapsoidea), it is ideal to bring back the subfamilies Calliophiinae, Micrurinae, Najinae, and Bungarinae.
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-691-13295-2.
- PMID 9417893.
- PMID 23627680.
- ^ PMID 26909162.
- ^ PMID 27603205.
- ^ "Definition of 'elapid'". dictionary.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-02. Retrieved 2009-07-13.
- doi:10.5372/1905-7415.0503.043 (inactive 31 January 2024).)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of January 2024 (link - ^ a b Elapidae at the Reptarium.cz Reptile Database. Accessed 3 November 2008.
- ^ Thomas S, Griessel E (Dec 1999). "LD50 Scores for various snakes". Archived from the original on 1 February 2012.
- PMID 31409779.
- ^ Regional Office for Africa, World Health Organization (2010). "Guidelines for the Prevention and Clinical Management of Snakebite in Africa". Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved July 9, 2021.
- (PDF) from the original on 2019-03-14. Retrieved 2019-10-14.
- (PDF) from the original on 2012-10-10. Retrieved 2010-09-18.
- ^ a b c d "Elapidae". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 27 November 2006.
- ^ The Hydrophiidae Archived 2007-07-02 at the Wayback Machine at Cyberlizard's home pages Archived 2007-11-24 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed [12 August] [2007].
- ^ Scanlon J,Lee M, Archer M, 2002, Mid-Tertiary elapid snakes (Squamata, Colubroidea) from Riversleigh, northern Australia: early steps in a continent-wide adaptive radiation, Geobios 36 (2003) 573–601 Archived 2019-03-12 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Nilson G, Rastegar-Pouyani N (2007). "Walterinnesia aegyptia Lataste, 1887 (Ophidia: Elapidae) and the status of Naja morgani Mocquard, 1905". Russian Journal of Herpetology 14: 7-14.
- ^ Ugurtas IH, Papenfuss TJ, Orlov NL (2001). "New record of Walterinnesia aegyptia Lataste, 1887 (Ophidia: Elapidae: Bungarinae) in Turkey". Russian Journal of Herpetology 8 (3): 239-245.
- ^ Eifes, C.T. & Livingstone 2013.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-7167-0020-4. (Family Elapidae, pp. 329–333).