Chondropython azureus (Meyer, 1874)

Schleip, Wulf D. & O'Shea, Mark, 2010, Annotated checklist of the recent and extinct pythons (Serpentes, Pythonidae), with notes on nomenclature, taxonomy, and distribution, ZooKeys 66, pp. 29-80 : 40

Chondropython azureus (Meyer, 1874)

Synonyms:

Chondropython viridis (Schlegel, 1872) - Hoser 2000 (part)

Chondropython viridis viridis (Schlegel) - Hoser 2004 (part)

Morelia viridis (Schlegel) - Henderson and Powell 2007 (part)

Morelia azurea (Meyer, 1874) - this paper

Remarks:

Resurrected from the synonymy of Morelia viridis by Hoser (2009). Rawlings and Donnellan (2003) revealed the existence of a sibling species pair within the green tree python. The authors found a genetic divergence of about 7% in mitochondrial DNA (cytochrome b gene) between the northern and southern lineages, separated by the Central Mountain Range that extends in an east-west direction through New Guinea (also see comments on Morelia viridis ). Rawlings and Donnellan (2003) revealed the existence of two species, one from north of the central cordillera, the other from the south, including the Aru Island and Australian populations. Nevertheless, within the southern lineage the Australian material formed a well supported clade whereas material from Aru Island clustered with that from Merauke and Timika. The authors state that "a determination of the species status of the northern and southern lineages awaits a more thorough assessment of divergence at nuclear genes based on wider geographic sampling than we could achieve herein with allozymes" ( Rawlings and Donnellan 2003: 42). In 2008, Rawlings et al. (2008: 604) referred to the northern populations as the "unnamed sibling taxon of Morelia viridis ". However, it is not yet evident that only a single taxon occurs on Aru Island, and that the published type locality for Morelia viridis is correct. The name azureus Meyer 1874 would be available for the northern linage, having its type locality on Biak Island, one of the localities from which specimens of " Morelia viridis N[orth]" were analyzed by Rawlings et al. (2008) and hence a strong candidate for the taxon name, based on priority. Since the types are presumed lost, we call for the designation of a neotype.