You are here » home › advanced search › Telescopus tessellatus

Telescopus tessellatus (WALL, 1908)

IUCN Red List - Telescopus tessellatus - Least Concern, LC
iNaturalist logo

Can you confirm these amateur observations of Telescopus tessellatus?

Add your own observation of
Telescopus tessellatus »

Find more photos by Google images search: Google images

Higher TaxaColubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Soosan Tiger Snake 
SynonymTarbophis tessellatus WALL 1908: 802
Tarbophis iberus BOULENGER 1920
Tarbophis tessellatus — BARBOUR & AMARAL 1927
Tarbophis fallax iberus CORKILL 1932
Tarbophis martini SCHMIDT 1939: 84
Telescopus tessellatus martini ANDERSON 1963
Telescopus tessellatus martini — LEVITON et al. 1992: 108
Tarbophis tessellatus — DAS & CHATURVEDI 1998
Telescopus tessellatus martini — RASTEGAR-POUYANI et al. 2008
Telescopus tessellatus tessellatus — RASTEGAR-POUYANI et al. 2008
Telescopus tessellatus — WALLACH et al. 2014: 713 
DistributionIran, Iraq

martini: Iran

tessellatus: Iran; Type locality: “Maidan Mihaftan 30 m. E. of Shushtar in S.W. Persia [...] between the Zagros mountains and the vast flat plains of Persian Mesopotamia”.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: BNHS = BNHM 2665
Holotype: FMNH 28319 [martini] 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (martini, n=10 ?). A Tarbophis similar to the fallax formenkreis in coloration, distinguished by having the dorsal scales uniformly in 21 rows and by a greater number of ventrals; the loreal enters the eye, and the anal may be entire or divided. (Schmidt 1939)


Additional details (2037 characters) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. 
CommentVenomous, but usually not dangerous to humans.

Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). 
EtymologyPresumably named after the Latin tesselatus (mosaic), in reference to the arrangement of the scales. 
References
  • Anderson, S.C. 1963. Amphibians and Reptiles from Iran. Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. Ser. 4, 31(16): 417-498 - get paper here
  • Barbour, T.; Amaral, A. D. 1927. Studies on African Ophidia. Bull. Antivenin Inst. America 1 (1): 25-27
  • Das, Indraneil;Chaturvedi, Naresh 1998. Catalogue of the herpetological types in the collection of the Bombay Natural History Society. Hamadryad 23 (2): 150-156 - get paper here
  • Fathnia, B.; N. Rastegar Pouyani; H. Darvishnia; M. Rajabzadeh 2010. The snake fauna of Ilam Province, southwestern Iran. Iranian Journal of Animal Biosystematics 6 (1) - get paper here
  • Geniez, Philippe 2018. Snakes of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. Princeton University Press, 384 pp. - get paper here
  • Habeeb, Israa Nadhim & Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani 2016. Geographical distribution of the snakes of Iraq. Mesopotamia Environmental Journal 2 (3): 67-77
  • 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
  • Kamali, Kamran 2020. A Field Guide to the Reptiles and Amphibians of Iran. Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt am Main, Germany (www.chimaira.de). 574 pp.
  • Leviton,A.E.; Anderson,S.C.; Adler, K.; Minton,S.A. 1992. Handbook to Middle East Amphibians and Reptiles. SSAR, Oxford, Ohio (Contr. to Herpetol. No. 8), 1-252
  • Nilson, Göran and Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani 2013. The occurence of Telescopus nigriceps (Ahl, 1924) in western Iran, with comments on the genus Telescopus (Serpentes: Colubridae). Zoology in the Middle East 59 (2): 131-135 - get paper here
  • Rajabizadeh, M. 2018. Snakes of Iran. [in Farsi] Tehran: Iranshenasi, 496 pp. [2017 ?] - get paper here
  • RASTEGAR-POUYANI, NASRULLAH; HAJI GHOLI KAMI, MEHDI RAJABZADEH, SOHEILA SHAFIEI AND STEVEN CLEMENT ANDERSON 2008. Annotated Checklist of Amphibians and Reptiles of Iran. Iranian Journal of Animal Biosystematics 4 (1): 7-30
  • Schmidt,K.P. 1939. Reptiles and amphibians from Southwestern Asia. Publ. Field Mus. nat. Hist., zool. Ser., 24: 49-92 - get paper here
  • Šmíd, J., Göçmen, B., Crochet, P.-A., Trape, J.-F., Mazuch, T., Uvizl, M., & Nagy, Z. T. 2019. Ancient diversification, biogeography, and the role of climatic niche evolution in the Old World cat snakes (Colubridae, Telescopus). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution - get paper here
  • Wall,F. 1908. Notes on a collection of snakes from Persia. J. Bombay nat. Hist. Soc. 18: 795-805 - 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.
 
External links  
Is it interesting? Share with others:


Please submit feedback about this entry to the curator