Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha (MCCOY, 1879)
Can you confirm these amateur observations of Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha?
Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha
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| Higher Taxa | Elapidae (Hydrophiinae), Elapoidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | |
| Synonym | Diemenia aspidorhyncha MCCOY 1879: 13 Diemenia carinata LONGMAN 1915: 31 Demansia acutirostris MITCHELL 1951 (part.) Demansia carinata — MITCHELL 1955: 378 Pseudonaja gowi WELLS 2002 Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha — WELLS 2002 Pseudonaja carinata — WELLS 2002 Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha — SKINNER 2009 Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha — WALLACH et al. 2014: 604 Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha — MIRTSCHIN et al. 2017 Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha — EIPPER & EIPPER 2024: 192 |
| Distribution | Southern central Australia, south of 27°S, from Penong, western Eyre Peninsula, to Hermidale, central New South Wales. Type locality: from unstated locality; Vic. by implication, restricted to junction of Murray and Darling Rivera by Coventry (1970). |
| Reproduction | oviparous (not imputed, fide Zimin et al. 2022) |
| Types | Holotype: NMV D12352 Holotype: QM J1508 [carinata] Holotype: SAMA R3133 [acutirostris] |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha may be differentiated from the remaining species of Pseudonaja redescribed here except P. nuchalis in possessing a strap-like rostral that imparts a chisel shape to the snout from a dorsal perspective (see Fig. 1). A diploid chromosome number of 34 serves to distinguish P. aspidorhyncha from the remaining species of Pseudonaja except P. affinis and possibly P. mengdeni (see Skinner et al., 2005, and below). The relative length of the prefrontal suture (i.e. the length of the prefrontal suture divided by head length) is consistently lower than for P. textilis specimens (0.049–0.092 vs. 0.096–0.136; see Table 9). Pseudonaja aspidorhyncha is separable from P. mengdeni and P. nuchalis in displaying (when preserved) a whitish to pale grey (as opposed to predominantly dark bluish grey) buccal epithelium (in live specimens, the buccal epithelium is never black as in P. mengdeni and P. nuchalis), and usually exhibits a greater number of ventrals than P. inframacula and P. nuchalis. (SKINNER 2009) 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 less than half a page) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us if you need any of this material. |
| Comment | Venomous! Karyotype: Mengden (1985) reported a diploid chromosome number of 34, with autosome pairs 4–16 being separable into two distinct size classes, and sex chromosomes that are of equal size. Reference images: see Uetz et al. 2024 for high-resolution reference images for this species. |
| Etymology | Presumably named after the Greek aspidos (shield) + rhynchos (ῥύγχος) (snout) in reference to the enlarged rostral shield. (G. Shea, pers. comm., 9 Feb 2024) |
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