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Boiga westermanni (REINHARDT, 1863)

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Higher TaxaColubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Indian Egg-eating Snake
G: Indische Eierschlange 
SynonymElachistodon westermanni REINHARDT 1863: 206
Elachistodon westermanni — BOULENGER 1896: 264
Elachistodon westermanni — SMITH 1943: 404
Elachistodon westermanni — DAS 1996: 56
Elachistodon westermanni — MURTHY 2010
Elachistodon westermanni — WALLACH et al. 2014: 260
Boiga westermanni — MOHAN et al. 2018
Elachistodon westermanni — PATEL & VYAS 2019 
DistributionBangladesh, India (Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat; Bhavnagar, Surat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Bihar, West Bengal, Punjab, Telangana), Nepal

Type locality: “Rungpore” = Rangpur, Bengal / Rajshahi division, NW Bangladesh.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesHolotype: ZMUC R6401, adulf female (Copenhagen) 
Diagnosis 
CommentDistribution: Possibly in Bhutan (Lenz 2012). See maps in Sharma 2014: 162, Mohan et al. 2018.

Conservation: rare; known from only 3 specimens between 1863 and 2005, after which about 100 specimens were discovered in India (the few records from Nepal and Bangladesh are all older).

Type species: Elachistodon westermanni REINHARDT 1863: 206 is the type species of the genus Elachistodon REINHARDT 1863. Elachistodon was “provisionally assigned” to Boiga by Mohan et al. 2018.

Diet: (bird) eggs

Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). 
EtymologyNamed after Geraldus Frederick Westermann (1807-1890), a book dealer and pigeon fancier who became a zoologist. 
References
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  • Bilaskar, Mahesh; Santhanakrishnan Babu, Honnavalli N. Kumara, Harif Parengal 2018. First record of the Indian Egg-eater, Elachistodon westermanni REINHARDT, 1863, from Karnataka, India. Herpetozoa 31 (1/2): 108 - 110 - get paper here
  • Boulenger, G.A. 1896. Catalogue of the snakes in the British Museum, Vol. 3. London (Taylor & Francis), xiv + 727 pp. - get paper here
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  • Captain, A.; Frank Tillack, Andreas Gumprecht and Parag Dandge 2005. FIRST RECORD OF Elachistodon westermanni REINHARDT, 1863 (SERPENTES, COLUBRIDAE, COLUBRINAE) FROM MAHARASHTRA STATE, INDIA. Russ. J. Herpetol. 2 (2): 156 – 158 - get paper here
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  • Dandge, Parag Hemachandra; Ashish Dilip Tiple 2016. Notes on Natural History, New Distribution Records and Threats of Indian Egg Eater Snake Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt, 1863 (Serpentes: Colubridae): Implications for Conservation. Russ. J. Herpetol. 23 (1): 55-62
  • Deshmukh, Rahul V.; Sagar A. Deshmukh, Swapnil A Badhekar, and Shubham D. Katgube 2020. The Indian Egg-eater, Elachistodon westermanni Reinhardt 1863 (Squamata: Dasypeltidae): First record from the Satpura Mountain Range of Madhya Pradesh, India, with notes on threats and habitat conservation. IRCF Reptiles & Amphibians 27 (1): 60–64 - get paper here
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