Acanthophis laevis MACLEAY, 1878

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Higher Taxa	Elapidae (Hydrophiinae), Colubroidea, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies
Common Names
Synonym	Acanthophis cerastinus ceramensis GÜNTHER 1863: 58 Acanthophis laevis MACLEAY 1878: 40 Acanthophis antarcticus — BOULENGER 1896 (part.) Acanthophis antarcticus laevis — WORRELL 1961 Acanthophis antarcticus laevis — KLEMMER 1963 Acanthophis barnetti HOSER 1998 Acanthophis crotalusei HOSER 1998 Acanthophis groenveldi HOSER 2002 Acanthophis macgregori HOSER 2002 Acanthophis yuwoni HOSER 2002 Acanthophis laevis — WÜSTER et al. 2004 Acanthophis ceramensis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 4 Acanthophis laevis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 4
Distribution	Papua New Guinea, Indonesia (Irian Jaya, Seram, Tanimbar). Type locality: “New Guinea” Macleay speculates it came from “Hall Sound”. ceramensis: Indonesia (Seram, Tanimbar); Type locality: “North Ceram” [= N Seram, Maluku, E Indonesia].
Reproduction	viviparous
Types	Holotype: AMS (AM) R31932, formerly MMUS R693 Syntypes: BMNH 63.12.4.19, 63.2.28.34-36 [ceramensis]
Diagnosis
Comment	Synonymy after W. WÜSTER et al. (2004 and pers. comm., 3 Jan 2017). A. ceramensis is a senior synonym of A. laevis but has hardly been used, so it may need to be suppressed by ICZN (W. WÜSTER, pers. comm., 3 Jan 2017).HOSER’s species may be also synonymous to Acanthophis praelongus. Further studies are required to clarify their relationships. Based on the nomenclature rules, the name crotalusei needs to be emended to crotali or crotalusi (fide WÜSTER et al. 2001). A. crotalusei is closely related to or may be a synonym of Acanthophis laevis Macleay 1878 according to WÜSTER (pers. comm.). KAISER et al. rejected all names coined by HOSER in or after 2000. Venomous!
Etymology
References	Clegg, Jonathan R. and Merlijn Jocque 2015. The Collection of Snakes Made by Benoît Mys and Jan Swerts in Northern Papua New Guinea in 1982–85 Journal of Herpetology 50 (3): 476-485 [2016] - get paper here Günther,A. 1863. Contribution to the herpetology of Ceram. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1863: 58-60 - get paper here Hoser, R. 1998. Death Adders (Genus Acanthophis): An overview, including descriptions of five new species and one subspecies. Monitor 9 (2): 20-41 - get paper here Hoser, R. 2002. Death adders (genus Acanthophis): an updated overview, including description of 3 new island species and 2 new Australian suspecies. Crocodilian, 4 (1): 5-7, 9-11, 14, 16-22, 24-30. - get paper here Kaiser, H.; Crother, B.I.; Kelly, C.M.R.; Luiselli, L.; O’Shea, M.; Ota, H.; Passos, P.; Schleip, W.D. & Wüster, W. 2013. Best Practices: In the 21st Century, Taxonomic Decisions in Herpetology are Acceptable Only When Supported by a Body of Evidence and Published via Peer-Review. Herpetological Review 44 (1): 8-23 KUCH, U. & McGUIRE, J. A. & YUWONO, F. B. 2006. Death adders (Acanthophis laevis complex) from the island of Ambonì. Herpetozoa 19 (1/2): 81-82 - get paper here Macleay, W. 1877. The ophidians of the Chevert Expedition. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 2: 33-41. - get paper here O’Shea, M. 2018. The Book of Snakes. Ivy Press / Quarto Publishing, London, - 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. Wüster, W., B. Bush, J. S. Keogh, M. O'Shea, and R. Shine 2001. Taxonomic contributions in the "amateur" literature: comments on recent descriptions of new genera and species by Raymond Hoser. Litteratura Serpentium 21 (3): 86-91 - get paper here Wüster, W.; Philippe Golay; David A. Warrell 1999. Synopsis of recent developments in venomous snake systematics, No. 3. Toxicon 37: 1123-1129 Wüster, Wolfgang; Alex J. Dumbrell; Chris Hay; Catharine E. Pook; David J. Williams and Bryan Grieg Fry 2004. Snakes across the Strait: trans-Torresian phylogeographic relationships in three genera of Australasian snakes (Serpentes: Elapidae: Acanthophis, Oxyuranus, and Pseudechis). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 33 (3): 1-14 - get paper here
External links	IUCN Red List - Acanthophis laevis - Least Concern, LC National Center for Biotechnology Information http://www.smuggled.com/adder1.htm http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~mcguirej/Kuch%20et%20al.%202006.pdf Google images

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