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Boiga drapiezii (BOIE, 1827)

IUCN Red List - Boiga drapiezii - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaColubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: White-spotted Cat Snake, Drapiez’s Cat Snake
G: Weissflecken-Katzennatter 
SynonymDipsas drapiezii H. BOIE in F. BOIE 1827: 549
Triglyphodon drapiezii — DUMÉRIL et al. 1854: 1097
Dipsas drapiezii var. bancana PETERS 1867: 26
Dipsadomorphus drapiezii — BOULENGER 1896
Boiga drapiezii — BARBOUR 1912
Boiga schultzei TAYLOR 1923
Boiga drapiezii — TWEEDIE 1950
Boiga drapiezii — TAYLOR 1965: 867
Boiga drapiezii — MANTHEY & GROSSMANN 1997: 322
Boiga drapiezii — COX et al. 1998: 73
Boiga drapiezii — GROEN 2008
Boiga drapiezii — COX et al. 2012: 114
Boiga drapiezii — WALLACH et al. 2014: 103
Boiga drapiezii — WEINELL et al. 2020 
DistributionIndonesia (Java, Kalimantan, Borneo, Mentawai Archipelago, Natuna Archipelago, Sumatra, Ambon ?);
Brunei Darussalam;
Malaysia (Malaya and East Malaysia, Pulau Pangkor);
Philippines (Sulu Archipelago, Luzon);
Singapore; Vietnam, Myanmar,
Thailand (Kanchanaburi)

Type locality: Java  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: RMNH (type status unclear fide Esther Dondorp, pers. comm. 28 Jan 2019) 
DiagnosisDiagnosis: A large species reaching a length of more than two meters; a large preocular reaching top of head, often to frontal; 19 scalerows, the vertebral row enlarged; a pair of black lines on venter. (Taylor 1965: 867)


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CommentLEVITON (1968b) recognized B. drapiezii and B. schultzei and could not determinate their true relationships. Both taxa were kept at a specific rank pending a better definition of B. drapiezii. RASMUSSEN (1979), ALCALA (1986) and GREENE (1989) regard B. schultzei a valid species, and this arrangement is followed here, with Boiga drapiezii considered monotypic. The species is predominantly green in Thailand and Malaysia and rarely brown (maybe 20%). On Java it is always brown (G. VOGEL, pers. comm.)

Habitat: fully arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). 
EtymologyNamed after Pierre Auguste Joseph Drapiez (1778-1856), a refugee from France who became a Professor at Museum des Sciences Naturelles, Brussels. 
References
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