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Clelia clelia (DAUDIN, 1803)

IUCN Red List - Clelia clelia - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaColubridae (Dipsadinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
SubspeciesClelia clelia clelia (DAUDIN 1803)
Clelia clelia groomei GREER 1965 
Common NamesE: Windward Cribo, Black Mussurana
G: Mussurana
S: Culebra minadora, Lisa
Portuguese: Cobra-Coral (juvenil), Cobra-Preta, Limpa-Mato, Muçurana, Muçurana-da-Amazônia, Mussurana 
SynonymColuber clelia DAUDIN 1803: 330
Clelia Daudinii FITZINGER 1826 (nom. subst. for Coluber clelia DAUDIN)
Brachyruton cloelia — DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854: 1007
Brachyruton cloelia [sic] JAN 1870 (part.)
Oxyrhopus clelia — COPE 1878: 33
Oxyrhopus cloelia — GARMAN 1884: 19
Oxyrhopus cloelia [sic] — BOULENGER 1886: 437
Oxyrhopus cloelia [sic] — BOULENGER (part.) 1896
Clelia cloelia — STEJNEGER 1913
Pseudoboa cloelia — SERIÉ 1921
Clelia clelia clelia — DUNN 1944
Cloelia cloelia cloelia — BEEBE 1946: 23
Pseudoboa cloelia — ABALOS et al. 1964
Clelia clelia groomei GREER 1965
Clelia clelia clelia — DUELLMAN 1978: 235
Clelia clelia clelia — GASC & RODRIGUES 1980
Clelia clelia — SCHWARTZ & HENDERSON 1991: 595
Clelia clelia clelia — CEI 1993
Clelia clelia — LINER 1994
Boiruna maculata — LEYNAUD & BUCHER 1999: 15
Clelia clelia clelia — GORZULA & SEÑARIS 1999
Boiruna maculata — DOS SANTOS-COSTA et al. 2000
Boiruna maculata — CAMPOS NOGUEIRA 2001
Clelia clelia clelia — BOOS 2001
Clelia clelia — SCOTT et al. 2006
Clelia clelia — WALLACH et al. 2014: 169
Clelia celia — METCALF et al. 2020 (in error)

Clelia clelia groomei GREER 1965
Clelia clelia groomei — POWELL & HENDERSON 2012 
DistributionBelize, Guatemala, El Salvador,
Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama,
Colombia (incl. Valle del Cauca), French Guiana, Guyana, Venezuela (Amazonas, Merida, Apure, [HR 32: 58]), NW Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, N Argentina (Mendoza, La Pampa, Entre Rios, Jujuy, Misiones, Santiago del Estero), Brazil (Pará, Amazonas, Rio Grande do Sul ?, Acre), Peru (Pasco etc.),

Lesser Antilles: Dominica, St. Lucia, Barbuda (fossil only), Grenada, Trinidad; elevation (Honduras): 120 m

clelia: Dominica; on the mainland from Central America south throughout much of tropical South America; Trinidad, Antigua,

groomei: Grenada.

Type locality: Suriname.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: lost; (fide Zaher 1996)
Holotype: MCZ 79767 [groomei]
Holotype: USNM 24966 [immaculata] 
DiagnosisUnfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 3234 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. 
CommentMay be venomous (see SANTOS-COSTA et al. 2000).

Synonymy: Clelia occipitolutea has been synonymized with Clelia clelia clelia by Scrocci and Vinas (1990) and revalidated by Zaher (1996) who put it into the genus Boiruna. Clelia plumbea has been elevated to full species. Synonymy mostly following that of CEI 1993.

Subspecies: Clelia clelia immaculata is known from only two specimens,the type collected by Major and another from Paso del Rio, Colima (Smith, 1942). These are the only two records for the species in western Mexico. Elsewhere, it ranges from Veracruz and Oaxaca to South America [ZEIFEL 1959]. The subspecies is not listed by LINER (200), so its current status is unclear to us.

Distribution: not on St. Lucia; the species on St. Lucia is Clelia errabunda.

Distribution: Reports of this species from Mexico represent C. scytalina (Heimes 2016: 209, Smith & Pérez-Higareda 1989). See map in Nogueira et al. 2019.

Relative abundance in Honduras: rare

Type species: Coluber clelia DAUDIN 1803 is the type species of the genus Clelia FITZINGER 1826. 
EtymologyThe species was named after the genus.

C. c. groomei was named after Dr. John R. Groome of Point Salines, Grenada, one of the few zoologists in the Lesser Antilles, who has been the primary instigator of a legal reform that protects all snakes on the island. For this, and for his hospitality to Mr. Lazell during his stay on Grenada, the new subspecies is named in his honor.

The genus was named after the Latin name Cloelia. In Roman legend Cloelia was a maiden who was given to an Etruscan invader as a hostage but managed to escape by swimming across the Tiber. The snakes of the genus Clelia are also known as mussuranas (Beolens et al. 2011: 55). 
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