Erythrolamprus reginae (LINNAEUS, 1758)
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Erythrolamprus reginae
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| Higher Taxa | Colubridae (Dipsadinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | Royal Ground Snake |
| Synonym | Coluber Reginae LINNAEUS 1758: 219 Coluber graphicus SHAW 1802: 474 Natrix reginae — MERREM 1820 Natrix semilineata WAGLER 1824: 33 Liophis reginae — WAGLER 1830 Coronella reginae — SCHLEGEL 1837: 61 Liophis reginae — DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854: 704 Liophis reginae var. quadrilineata JAN 1863: 295 Liophis reginae var. quadrilineata — JAN 1866 Liophis reginae var. ornata JAN 1863: 295 Liophis wagleri JAN 1863: 297 (part.) Leimadophis reginae — BEEBE 1946: 29 Leimadophis reginae — PETERS 1960 Leimadophis reginae reginae — PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970: 148 Leimadophis reginae — DUELLMAN 1978: 246 Leimadophis reginae — GASC & RODRIGUES 1980 Liophis reginae reginae — DIXON 1980: 24 Liophis reginae semilineatus — DIXON 1983: 3 (part.) Liophis poecilogyrus intermedius — VANZOLINI 1986 Liophis miliaris intermedius HENLE & EHRL 1991 (fide DIXON & TIPTON 2003 Leimadophis reginae — SHINE 1994 Liophis reginae — LEYNAUD & BUCHER 1999: 23 Liophis reginae semilineatus — KORNACKER 1999 Liophis reginae semilineatus — FROTA et al. 2005 Liophis reginae — BERNILS et al. 2007 Erythrolamprus reginae — GRAZZIOTIN et al. 2012 Liophis reginae — BERNARDE et al. 2012 Liophis reginae — CATENAZZI et al. 2013 Liophis reginae — COLE et al. 2013 Liophis reginae — WALLACH et al. 2014: 385 (part.) Erythrolamprus reginae semilineata — SANTOS-COSTA et al. 2015 Erythrolamprus reginae reginae — ASCENSO et al. 2019 Erythrolamprus reginae semilineatus — MARQUES et al. 2016 |
| Distribution | Ecuador (Amazonas), Colombia, Venezuela (e.g. Falcon [HR 30: 115], Amazonas), French Guiana, Brazil (Goias, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Para, Rio Grande do Sul, Bahia, S Ceará, Piauí), Peru (Pasco etc.), Bolivia, Trinidad, N Guyana, Paraguay reginae: Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. semilineatus: Amazonian Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil (including Atlanlic Forest, Pará) Type locality: “Indiis”; restricted to Suriname by DIXON 1983. |
| Reproduction | oviparous. |
| Types | Lectotype: NRM 44 (also given as RMS), Paralectotype: NRM 45, juvenile specimen, designated by Andersson (1899). Lectotype: ZSM 1832/0/1 (ZSM H 1832/0 A in Hoogmoed & Gruber 1983), male [semilineata] Holotype: BMNH 1946.1.5.73 [graphicus] Holotype: ZFMK 34343, Paratypes: ZFMK 33346, 33350 (juv.) [intermedius] |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis. Erythrolamprus reginae can be distinguished from all congeners by unique combination of the following characters: (1) dorsal scales rows 17, reducing to 15 after midbody; (2) apical pit single; (3) ventrals 125–164 in females, 131–162 in males; (4) subcaudals 54–96 in females, 56–84 in males; (5) dorsum of head olive green, in preservative, extending from anterior third of body, changing gradually to grayish-brown at midbody; (6) upper edges of supralabials with distinctive dark postorbital stripe; (7) belly creamish-white with black spots with squared or rhomboid shape arranged in a checkered pattern; (8) black lateral spots extending from anterior third of the body, between 2–3th dorsal scale rows, to form a lateral stripe extending until the end of the tail; (9) ventral surface of tail creamish-white without black spots; (10) intrasulcal region of hemipenial body with spines slightly elongated, arranged in a row extending from distal region of lobes to the level of bifurcation of sulcus spermaticus; (11) medial region of hemipenial body, on the asulcate side, ornamented by spinules homogeneously distributed, or elongated spines arranged in one or three longitudinal rows; (12) sulcus spermaticus bifurcates at half length of the hemipenial body; and (13) moderate body size (SVL 87–709 mm) [from Ascenso et al. 2019] Comparisons. Erythrolamprus reginae shares a lateral stripe along the posterior region of body and tail and usually a cream belly scattered of squared or rhomboid black spots with E. macrosomus, E. dorsocorallinus, and E. zweifeli. Erythrolamprus reginae differs from E. oligolepis by having 17 dorsal scale rows at midbody and ventral surface with squared black spots (vs. 15 dorsal scales rows at midbody and belly usually without spots); from E. macrosomus by having ventral region of tail without black spots (vs. ventral surface of the tail with black spots); from E. zweifeli and E. dorsocorallinus by having dorsal ground color regularly pigmented of olive green with a dorsal-lateral black stripe (vs. dorsal scales with apical half black, with the basal portion yellowish, reddish or bluish-cream) (Figs 4 and 5). Additionally, E. reginae differs from E. epinephelus epinephelus and E. e. albiventris (Jan 1863) by having ventral surface with squared black spots (vs. belly usually without spots), and from E. e. juvenalis (Dunn 1937), E. e. pseudocobella (Peracca 1914), E. e. opisthotaenius (Boulenger 1908), E. e. bimaculatus (Cope 1899), E. e. lamonae (Dunn 1944), and E. e. fraseri (Boulenger 1894) by having dorsal ground color of the head regularly pigmented of olive green, extending from anterior third of the body, without bands or blotches (vs. dorsum of the head cream or olive green, with bands on anterior portion of body, and a black spot and a thick postorbital stripe, on each side of head). Regarding the following sympatric taxa, E. reginae differs from E. cobella, E. taeniogaster and E. breviceps by having a cream belly scattered of black squared spots occupying an area lower than a ventral scale (vs. cream belly scattered of complete black bands, usually occupying two ventral scales); from E. miliaris by having dorsal ground color regularly pigmented of olive green with a dorsal-lateral black stripe (vs. dorsum of head, body and tail yellowish-cream with the distal half of the scales black and dorsal- lateral stripe absent); from E. typhlus and E. poecilogyrus by having 17 dorsal scale rows in the midbody (vs. 19 dorsal scale rows in the midbody); from E. taeniurus by having ventrals 125–164 in females, and 131–162 in males, besides of the dorsal ground color regularly pigmented of olive green with a dorsal-lateral black stripe (vs. 152–181 ventral scales and dorsum olive brown with 6–15 anterior dark body bands or blotches, posteriorly merging to form a middorsal dark stripe) [from Ascenso et al. 2019] Liophis zweifeli differs from L. reginae (meristic and colour characters taken from Dixon 1983a) in having a salt-and-pepper dorsal pattern (vs dorsum with dense pale and dark paravertebral flecking in L. reginae) and in having a higher number of subcaudal scales (69−88 vs 55−78 in L. r. reginae). |
| Comment | Synonymy partly after PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970. L. r. zweifeli has been confused with Liophis miliaris (see Kornacker et al. 2002). WALLACH et al. 2014 list Leimadophis reginae macrosoma and Natrix semilineata as synonyms of Liophis reginae. Dixon 1983 placed Erythrolamprus oligolepis in the synonymy of Liophis reginae semilineata but CUNHA & NASCIMENTO 1993 revalidated it as Leimadophis oligolepis. Ascenso et al. 2019 synonymized E. r. semilineatus with E. reginae. Dixon (1983) confirmed that the holotype of Coluber violaceus Lacépède 1789 was lost, and maintained the synonimization with E. reginae proposed by Günther (1858). However, Ascenso et al. 2019 propose removing C. violaceus from the synonymy of Erythrolamprus reginae, based on the incongruence between the description of E. reginae and that performed by Lacépède (1789) (25 subcaudal scales in C. violaceus vs. 62 in E. reginae). Thus, they propose that the status nomen dubium is be applied to C. violaceus, until a further investigation clarify the identity of this taxon. Distribution: see map in Ascenso et al. 2019: 88 (Fig. 8). Subspecies: Erythrolamprus reginae zweifeli (ROZE 1959) and Erythrolamprus reginae macrosomus (AMARAL 1936) have been elevated to full species status. Habitat: forest |
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