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Chironius laurenti DIXON, WIEST & CEI, 1993

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Higher TaxaColubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesPortuguese: Cobra-Cipó 
SynonymChironius dixoni WIEST 1978
Chironius laurenti DIXON, WIEST & CEI 1993: 141
Chironius laurenti — HOLLIS 2006
Chironius laurenti — WALLACH et al. 2014: 161
Chironius laurenti — PINHEIRO et al. 2015
Chironius laurenti — NOGUEIRA et al. 2019
Chironius dixoni — BERNAL & DUBOIS 2023
Chironius dixoni — GUEDES et al. 2023
Chironius laurenti — JADIN et al. 2024
Chironius laurenti — DORADO-RODRIGUES et al. 2025
Chironius dixoni — GÓMEZ-MURILLO et al. 2025 
DistributionBolivia (Beni, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz),
Brazil (Mato Grosso, Acre)

Type locality: Bolivia, Department of Beni, Rio Mamore; restricted to about 23 km west of San Javier, Mamor é River, Department of Beni, Bolivia (ca. 14°35’S, 65°04’W;~170 m above sea level by Sudré et al. 2026.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: AMNH 101815, adult male. Paratypes (27): AMNH 6778, 101809-814, 101816-819, 101821, 104558; BMNH 1904.10.29.52; CM 2880, 2946-47; FNMH 35580,161509, MZUSP 6407, UMMZ 60744-45,60749,63922 (2 Specimen),64015, USNM 159787. 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: this is the only Chironius species with a combination of 12 scale rows at midbody, divided anal plate, 163-181 ventrals, immaculate yellowish subcaudals, dorsum brownish ,32-36 maxillary teeth, 2-10 scale rows in males and 2-6 scale rows in females keeled and a mottled ventrolateral pattern on posterior of body and tail [shortened after DIXON et al. 1993: 142].


Unfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data. However, these details, e.g. detailed descriptions (about about 1.6 pages) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us if you need any of this material. 
CommentDistribution: Map in DIXON et al. 1993: 143. See map in Nogueira et al. 2019. Sudré et al. 2026 restricted C. laurenti to populations distributed throughout the Madeira River Basin and split off the remaining populations into a new species, C. xaraes. See map in Sudré et al. 2026: Fig 9.

Synonymy: Wiest published the description of C. dixoni in his PhD thesis, which was later published again in slighly modified form by Dixon et al. 1993. The holotypes of C. dixoni and C. laurenti are identical. Entiauspe-Neto & Loebmann 2019 argued that Wiest 1978 constitutes a proper publication and thus has priority over Dixon et al. 1993. However, later authors disagree and only accept Dixon et al. 1993 as the authors (e.g. Sudré et al. 2026). C. laurenti nests within C. multiventris in the phylogeny published by Jadin et al. 2024.

Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). 
EtymologyNamed after Dr. Raymond Ferdinand Louis-Philippe Laurent (1917-2005), a Belgian herpetologist who worked for much of his life in Argentina and started the Herpetology Department, Fondación Miguel Lillo, Tucuman, Argentina (1975).  
References
  • Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA - get paper here
  • Bernal, Rodrigo & Alain Dubois 2023. Chironius scurrula, the correct nomen for Chironius scurrulus (Squamata, Serpentes, Colubridae), with a list of the correct spellings of specific epithets currently in use in this genus. Bionomina 34: 035–044 - get paper here
  • Dixon J R; Wiest J A Jr; Cei J M 1993. Revision of the Neotropical snake genus Chironius Fitzinger (Serpentes, Colubridae). MUSEO REGIONALE DI SCIENZE NATURALI MONOGRAFIE (TURIN) 13 :1-280
  • Dorado-Rodrigues, T. F., Valadão, R. M., Valério, L. M., Castro, C. P. D., & Strüssmann, C. 2025. Herpetofauna from a protected area situated in a biogeographic transition zone in Central South America. Biota Neotropica, 25(1), e20241681 - get paper here
  • Entiauspe-Neto OM, Loebmann D 2019. Taxonomic status of Chironius laurenti Dixon, Wiest & Cei, 1993 and of the long- forgotten Chironius dixoni Wiest, 1978 (Squamata, Serpentes). Bionomina 16: 83–87 - get paper here
  • Gómez-Murillo, Pedro; Oliver Quinteros-Muñoz, Enrique Domic, Teresa Camacho-Badani, Romeo Rojas-Estrada, Irene Arellano-Martín, Rodrigo Aguayo, Lucindo Gonzales, Luis F. Esqueda, Carlos Urdiales Alonso, Dennis E. Lizarro (†), Edson Cortez, Mauricio O 2025. Catalogue of the reptiles (Reptilia) of Bolivia: checklist, distribution and literature. Cuadernos de Herpetología 39(S1):2-185 - get paper here
  • Gonzalez R. C. et al. 2020. Lista dos Nomes Populares dos Répteis no Brasil – Primeira Versão. Herpetologia Brasileira 9 (2): 121 – 214 - get paper here
  • Harrington, Sean M; Jordyn M de Haan, Lindsey Shapiro, Sara Ruane 2018. Habits and characteristics of arboreal snakes worldwide: arboreality constrains body size but does not affect lineage diversification. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 125 (1): 61–71 - get paper here
  • Hollis, J.L. 2006. Phylogenetics of the genus Chironius Fitzinger 1826 (Serpenes, Colubridae) based on morphology. Herpetologica 62 (4): 435-452 - get paper here
  • Jadin, R. C., Jowers, M. J., Blair, C., Ludwig, R. K., Salgado-Irazabal, X., & Murphy, J. C. 2024. Rectifying a century of misidentifications: a taxonomic re-evaluation of sipo snakes (Colubridae: Chironius) on Trinidad. Systematics and Biodiversity 22(1): 2338064 - get paper here
  • Miranda, Daniele Bazzo; Nathocley Mendes Venâncio, Saymon de Albuquerque 2014. Rapid survey of the herpetofauna in an area of forest management in eastern Acre, Brazil. Check List 10 (4): 893-899 - get paper here
  • Nogueira, Cristiano C.; Antonio J.S. Argôlo, Vanesa Arzamendia, Josué A. Azevedo, Fausto E. Barbo, Renato S. Bérnils, Bruna E. Bolochio, Marcio Borges-Martins, Marcela Brasil-Godinho, Henrique Braz, Marcus A. Buononato, Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia, 2019. Atlas of Brazilian snakes: verified point-locality maps to mitigate the Wallacean shortfall in a megadiverse snake fauna. South American J. Herp. 14 (Special Issue 1):1-274 - get paper here
  • Pinheiro, Leandra C.; Pedro S. Abe; Youszef O. C. Bitar; Luiz P. P. Albarelli & Maria C. Santos-Costa 2015. Composition and ecological patterns of snake assemblages in an Amazon-Cerrado Transition Zone in Brazil. Iheringia, Série Zoologia, Porto Alegre, 105(2):147-156 - get paper here
  • Roberto, I. J. and Souza, A. R. 2020. Review of prey items recorded for snakes of the genus Chironius (Squamata, Colubridae), including the first record of Osteocephalus as prey. Herpetology Notes 13: 1-5. - get paper here
  • Silva-Alves, V. D., Mudrek, J. R., Silva-Diogo, O., Canale, G. R., Santos-Filho, M., Muniz, C. C., & Silva, D. J. 2022. A first approximation for the Herpetofauna species composition of the Taiamã Ecological Station, Pantanal of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Brazilian Journal of Biology, 82 - get paper here
  • Sudré, V., Ceríaco, L. M., Torres-Carvajal, O., Strüssmann, C., Curcio, F. F., Colli, G. R., & Passos, P. 2026. Systematics of Chironius laurenti Dixon, Wiest and Cei 1993 (Serpentes: Colubridae) reveals unexpected taxonomic insights. Organisms Diversity & Evolution, 1-32 - get paper here
  • Torres-Carvajal, O., Echevarría, L.Y., Lobos, S.E., Venegas, P.J., Kok, P.J.R. 2018. Phylogeny, diversity and biogeography of Neotropical sipo snakes (Serpentes: Colubrinae: Chironius). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 130: 315-329 - get paper here
  • Wallach, Van; Kenneth L. Williams, Jeff Boundy 2014. Snakes of the World: A Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species. [type catalogue] Taylor and Francis, CRC Press, 1237 pp.
  • Wiest, J. A., Jr. 1978. Revision of the Neotropical snake genus Chironius Fitzinger (Serpentes, Colubridae). PhD. dissertation, Texas A&M University: i–xv + 1–370
 
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