Hydrophis viperinus (Schmidt, 1852)

Figueroa, Alex, Low, Martyn E. Y. & Lim, Kelvin K. P., 2023, Singapore’s herpetofauna: updated and annotated checklist, history, conservation, and distribution, Zootaxa 5287 (1), pp. 1-378 : 240

Hydrophis viperinus (Schmidt, 1852) — Uncertain.

Viperine Sea Snake

( Figure 26H )

Singapore records.

Hydrophis viperina — Dennys, 1880a: 3.— Das, 2018: 117.

Praescutata viperina —F.L.K. Lim & M.T.-M. Lee, 1989: 116.—K.K.P. Lim & L.M. Chou, 1990: 54.— K.K.P. Lim & F.L.K. Lim, 1992: 148.—L.M. Chou et al., 1994: 106.— Iskandar & Colijn, 2001: 140.—K.P. Lim & F.L.K. Lim, 2002: 148.—Chan-ard et al., 2015: 262.

Thalassophis viperina — Das, 2010: 324.— Das, 2012a: 104.—Wallach et al., 2014: 716.

Remarks. Dennys (1880a) first reported H. viperinus from Singapore in a newspaper article where he provided a checklist of Singapore’s snakes based on specimens at the Raffles Museum. However, Blanford (1881) did not include it in his list of specimens examined. In fact, H. viperinus does not appear on any list for Singapore again until Lim & Lee (1989), but they did not reference any reported observations or museum specimens. Presumably, they allude to Voris and Jeffries specimens collected from around Horsburgh Lighthouse on Pedra Branca and six from the Kangkar Fish Market from the South China Sea which we ignore (refer to “A note on sea snakes in Singapore ” above). As there are no confirmed records of H. viperinus from Singapore, we choose to classify its status in Singapore as uncertain.

Occurrence: No credible records.

Singapore conservation status. Not Evaluated.

Conservation priority. Immediate priority, if discovered.

IUCN conservation status. Least Concern [2018].

LKCNHM & NHMUK Museum specimens. No specimens.

Additional Singapore museum specimens. Singapore (no locality): FMNH.

Singapore localities. No published localities.

Family Typhlopidae (2 species)

Genus Indotyphlops Hedges, Marion, Lipp, Marin & Vidal, 2014 (2 species)

Figures

FIGURE 26. A) Trimeresurus hageni, B)Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus, C)Tropidolaemus wagleri (male), D) Tropidolaemus wagleri (juvenile female), E) Tropidolaemus wagleri (adult female), F) Xenopeltis unicolor, G) Hydrophis cyanocinctus, and H) Hydrophis viperinus. Photographs by: Alex Figueroa [A–F], and Sanjaya Bandara [G–H].