Rhinophis porrectus Wall, 1921

Pyron, Robert Alexander, Ganesh, Sumaithangi Rajagopalan, Sayyed, Amit, Sharma, Vivek, Wallach, Van & Somaweera, Ruchira, 2016, A catalogue and systematic overview of the shield-tailed snakes (Serpentes: Uropeltidae), Zoosystema 38 (4), pp. 453-506 : 484

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.5252/z2016n4a2

publication LSID

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:BFFD82EF-50C9-42BF-8493-DF57591EA4FF

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03A82A47-8302-FF9A-FC0B-FF62FBBC7EFC

treatment provided by

Felipe

scientific name

Rhinophis porrectus Wall, 1921
status

 

Rhinophis porrectus Wall, 1921

Rhinophis porrectus Wall, 1921b: 35 .

TYPE MATERIAL. — Holotype: BMNH 1920.8 .25.1 (= BMNH 1946.1.16.70).

TYPE LOCALITY. — On the road between Puttalam and Chilaw, near Madurankuliya fide Willey (1903; the original collector), North- Western province, Sri Lanka .

DISTRIBUTION. — This species is known only from the type specimen collected at Madurankuliya in the lowland dry zone of Sri Lanka (near sea level). Some sources ( Smith 1943) record the type locality as Maradankadawala, an area further interior in the lowland dry zone, but this is an error. The original collector ( Willey 1903) reports the specimen as originating from Madurankuliya. More recently, Kumarasinghe et al. (2013) reported a specimen from Eluwankulama Aruwakkalu Forest, c. 35 km North of Puttalam, identified as Rhinophis cf. porrectus .

DESCRIPTION

The size, scalation, and coloration are indistinguishable from Rhinophis punctatus (see below), from which it is distinguishable only by the higher number of ventral scales (281 vs 236-246) and a much thicker body (see Smith 1943). As with R. punctatus (see below), color pattern a blackish-brown dorsum with white margins, a white stripe on either side of the body, and a brown vertebral stripe.

REMARKS

It is unclear whether or not this is a distinct species from Rhinophis punctatus ( Smith 1943; Gans 1966). We continue to treat it as such, given the large difference in ventral-scale count, the largest such count of any known uropeltid species. It is also geographically distinct from R. punctatus , being found in the Northwest dry zone vs the central hills in the wet zone (but see Karunarathna & Amarasinghe 2011). More specimens are needed to examine the distinctiveness of these species. See Wall (1921b).

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Reptilia

Order

Squamata

Family

Uropeltidae

Genus

Rhinophis

Loc

Rhinophis porrectus Wall, 1921

Pyron, Robert Alexander, Ganesh, Sumaithangi Rajagopalan, Sayyed, Amit, Sharma, Vivek, Wallach, Van & Somaweera, Ruchira 2016
2016
Loc

Rhinophis porrectus

WALL F. 1921: 35
1921
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