Helicops Wagler, 1828

Hurtado-Gómez, Juan Pablo, Daza, Juan M., Vargas-Ramírez, Mario, Deepak, V. & Fritz, Uwe, 2024, Phylogeography of the Colombian water snake Helicops danieli Amaral, 1938 (Reptilia, Squamata, Dipsadidae) with comments on the systematics and evolution of the genus Helicops Wagler, 1828, ZooKeys 1215, pp. 335-358 : 335-358

Subgenus: Helicops Wagler, 1828

Type species.

Coluber carinicaudus Wied-Neuwied, 1824 (designated by Fitzinger 1843).

Diagnosis.

Members of the subgenus Helicops have long hemipenial lobes decorated with papillate flounces or calyces extending to the tips, but without spinules. The hemipenial body is covered both with spines and spinules; spines are concentrated on the sulcate surface and the lateral regions of the hemipenial body (Fig. 4 B ).

Content.

15 species, Helicops (Helicops) acangussu Moraes-da-Silva et al., 2022, H. (H.) angulatus (Linnaeus, 1758) , H. (H.) apiaka Kawashita-Ribeiro, Ávila & Morais, 2013 , H. (H.) boitata Moraes-da-Silva et al., 2019, H. (H.) carinicaudus (Wied-Neuwied, 1824) , H. (H.) danieli Amaral, 1938 , H. (H.) gomesi Amaral, 1922 , H. (H.) hagmanni Roux, 1910 , H. (H.) nentur Costa et al., 2016 , H. (H.) pastazae Shreve, 1934 , H. (H.) petersi Rossman, 1976 , H. (H.) polylepis Günther, 1861 , H. (H.) scalaris Jan, 1865 , H. (H.) trivittatus (Gray, 1849) , H. (H.) yacu Rossman & Dixon, 1975 .

Comments.

Wagler (1828) coined the generic name Helicops to allocate Coluber carinicaudus (= Helicops carinicaudus ) and suggested that Coluber angulatus Linnaeus, 1758 (= Helicops angulatus ) and Coluber erytrogrammus Palisot de Beauvois in Sonnini & Latreille, 1801 (= Farancia erytrogramma ) belonged to Helicops because of their similarity. Two years later, Wagler (1830) included in Helicops the following species: H. carinicaudus , C. erytrogrammus , C. plicatilis , C. angulatus , and Natrix aspera Wagler, 1824 (= Helicops angulatus ), without designation of a type species. Fitzinger (1843) designated H. carinicaudus as valid type species of Helicops . Since Wagler (1828) erected the name Helicops , the correct authorship has to be credited to Wagler (1828) and not Wagler (1830), as frequently seen (e. g., da Frota 2005; Kawashita-Ribeiro et al. 2013; Murphy et al. 2020; Schöneberg and Köhler 2022).

Figures

Figure 4. Hemipenes of A H. leopardinus (based on UFMTR 1504 from Moraes-da-Silva et al. 2021) and B H. danieli (based on MHUAR 15565) in sulcate (left) and asulcate (right) views. Scale bars: 10 mm. The hemipenis of H. leopardinus represents the morphology with short lobes characteristic for the subgenus Tachynectes; the hemipenis of H. danieli represents the morphology with long lobes characteristic for the subgenus Helicops. Note that the hemipenis is homogeneously covered with spinules in (A), whereas large spines are confined to the hemipenial body (i. e., excluding the lobes) on the sulcate surface and the lateral regions in (B). Drawings: V. Deepak.