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Pareas margaritophorus (JAN, 1866)

IUCN Red List - Pareas margaritophorus - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaPareidae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Mountain Slug Snake
G: Weissflecken-Schneckennatter
Chinese: 横纹钝头蛇 
SynonymLeptognathus margaritophorus JAN 1866
Pareas margaritophorus THEOBALD 1876
Pares Moellendorffi BOETTGER 1885
Pares Moellendorffi — COPE 1895: 424
Amblycephalus tamdaoensis BOURRET 1935: 11
Pareas margaritophorus — SMITH 1943: 117
Dipsas margaritophorus — NGUYEN & HO 1996
Pareas margaritophorus — MANTHEY & GROSSMANN 1997: 377
Pareas margaritophorus — COX et al. 1998: 79
Pareas margaritophorus — ZIEGLER 2002: 246
Pareas margaritophorus — WALLACH et al. 2014: 536
Pareas margaritophorus — CHAN-ARD et al. 2015: 160
Pareas margaritophorus — NGUYEN et al. 2018
Pareas (Eberhardtia) margaritophorus — POYARKOV et al. 2022 
DistributionN West Malaysia, Indonesia (N Sumatra),
Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam (Hoa Binh),
China (Guangdong, Hong Kong, Guangxi ?, Hainan)

Introduced to Singapore.

Type locality: Siam [=Thailand]

tamdaoensis: Vietnam; Type locality: TL Tam Dao, N Vietnam [tamdaoensis].  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: MNHN-RA 0599, ZSI 8024–26 (syntypes?) 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: macularius is keeled-scaled and has a “type II collar” while margaritophorus is smooth-scaled and has a “type I collar”. See Hauser 2017 for more details and figures, although his overall description is not very clear. 
CommentBehavior: nocturnal.

Synonymy: Pareas macularius Theobald,1868 was synonymized with Pareas
margaritophorus (Jan,1866) by HUANG 2004. However, genetic data suggests it is a valid species (e.g. Zaher et al. 2019). Vogel et al. 2020 revalidated P. andersonii from the synonymy of P. margaritophorus.

Smith (1943), apparently acting as first revisor, chose macularius in preference to modestus. Theobald credited the name, macularius, to E. Blyth, but there is no indication that the description originated with Blyth. Zhao & Adler 1993 therefore credited it solely to Theobald.

Distribution: Not listed by GRANDISON 1977 for West Malaysia or Singapore. Possibly in Bhutan (SCHLEICH & KÄSTLE 2000, as P. macularius). See maps in Hauser 2017: 42 (Fig. 12) and Vogel et al. 2020: 554 (Fig. 1). Erroneously reported from India (Mizoram) and Myanmar (= Burma), but not there (G. Vogel, pers. comm., 26 June 2021).

Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018).

Group: The Pareas margaritophorus species group includes P. andersonii, P. modestus, P. macularius, and P. margaritophorus (Poyarkov et al. 2022). 
EtymologyAfter the Latin “margarita” = pearl, and Greek “phorus” = carrying. 
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