Ahaetulla mycterizans (Linnaeus, 1758)

Mulcahy, Daniel G., Lee, Justin L., Miller, Aryeh H., Chand, Mia, Thura, Myint Kyaw & Zug, George R., 2018, Filling the BINs of life: Report of an amphibian and reptile survey of the Tanintharyi (Tenasserim) Region of Myanmar, with DNA barcode data, ZooKeys 757, pp. 85-152 : 85

Ahaetulla mycterizans (Linnaeus, 1758) Malayan Vinesnake Fig. 5B

Description.

Adult female 745 mm SVL, 385 TailL in life; dorsal scales in 15-15-13 rows, ventrals 190, 148 paired subcaudals with undamaged tip; single precloacal (anal) scale. Snout is blunt, rostral scale truncate anteriorly; 2 loreal scales on right, 1 left, each a small lanceolate scale, isolated in suture between the supralabials and internasal and prefrontal scales; internasal (dorsal surface of snout) flat anteriorly and convex posteriorly. In preservative, the head and nuchal area are bright green dorsally and laterally; trunk gradually become darker green and at about one-third length is olive to tip of tail; laterally trunk pale green to narrow white ventrolateral edge of upturned ventral scales (forming longitudinal stripe), then bordered medially by narrow dark green longitudinal stripe; white stripe becomes yellow by midbody and continues yellow onto base of tail; green stripe disappears 15-20 ventrals anterior to the vent; remainder of venter is white from tip of chin to about midbody then becoming greenish yellow continuing onto tail.

Natural history notes.

Collected at 1000 hours near Yeybuchaung-ngal stream, approximately 100 meters downstream from Camp 1.

General Distribution.

Tanintharyi southward through Malaya Peninsula to Java and Sumatra.

Molecular Data.

There are no other COI sequences in BOLD for A. mycterizans . Our specimen was placed in its own COIBIN and the 16S is 99% similar to other A. mycterizans in GenBank (KX660161, KX660205; no locality data provided) and was placed in a 16S clade with these specimens and an "A. prasina" (FMNH 269042 from Borneo) that is likely misidentified (KX660195).

Comments.

This species was an unsuspected find, because it had not been reported previously from Myanmar and the closest Thai records are in southern Thailand south of the Isthmus of Kra. This specimen represents the northernmost record of this species (see Lee et al. 2015). A second specimen (CAS 247859) was confirmed (JLL) further south from Kawthaung, Tanintharyi Region, Myanmar previously identified as A. prasina .

Specimens examined.

USNM 587040.

Red List status.

LC.