Morelia Gray, 1842

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 : 44

Genus Morelia Gray, 1842

Synonyms:

Lenhoserus Hoser, 2000

Chondropython Meyer, 1874 - Hoser 2000

Nyctophilopython Wells & Wellington, 1985 - Hoser 2000

Montypythonoides Smith & Plane, 1985 - Scanlon 2001

Australiasis Wells & Wellington, 1984 - Hoser 2004

Remarks:

Hoser (2000) proposed the splitting of this genus into several genera. He created a new genus, Lenhoserus Hoser (see comments there) (for Morelia boeleni ), and resurrected Australiasis Wells & Wellington (for Morelia amethistina and Broghammerus timoriensis ), but created an unavailable name (APP6) (" Austroliasis" ) by incorrect subsequent spelling (APP4). Later, Hoser (2004) used the correct spelling Australiasis Wells & Wellington, added the species recognized by Harvey et al. (2000) and additionally resurrected the taxon duceboracensis Günther 1879 (see comments there). Furthermore, he resurrected Chondropython Meyer 1874 (for Morelia viridis ) and Nyctophilopython Wells & Wellington (for Morelia oenpelliensis ). However, phylogenetic studies ( Rawlings et al. 2008) revealed that this taxonomic action is unwarranted. Although Rawlings et al.'s (2008) maximum parsimony analysis showed Morelia to be diphyletic (but monophyletic in Bayesian analysis), the separation of the amethistina-complex (sensu Harvey et al. 2000) and of oenpelliensis from the bredli/spilota-clade would in any case be unwarranted and would nullify the monophyly of this grouping. The resurrection of Chondropython would only be warranted at subgeneric rank with the inclusion of the two recognized lineages of the green tree python (sensu Rawlings and Donnellan 2003) and of Morelia carinata . However, Rawlings and Donnellan (2003) and Rawlings et al. (2008) avoided such placement because the phylogeny was not fully resolved (see comments for Chondropython azureus ) The placement of Morelia boeleni as a separate monotypic genus is also unwarranted. We do not see any value in dividing such a small genus, and in the interests of nomenclatural stability, we place Australiasis , Lenhoserus , Chondropython , and Nyctophilopython in the synonymy of Morelia .