Rhabdophis ceylonensis (GÜNTHER, 1858)

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Higher Taxa	Colubridae (Natricinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies
Common Names	E: Sri Lankan Keelback Blossom krait
Synonym	Tropidonotus chrysargus var. ceylonensis GÜNTHER 1858 Tropidonotus ceylonensis — GÜNTHER 1864 Tropidonotus ceylonensis — BOULENGER 1893: 252 Rhabdophis ceylonensis — WALL 1921 Amphiesma ceylonensis — WALL 1921: 103 Balanophis ceylonensis — SMITH 1943: 310 Balanophis ceylonensis — HARDING & WELCH 1980 Rhabdophis chysargus — MURPHY et al. 1994 (in error) Rhabdophis ceylonensis — FRANK & RAMUS 1995 Balanophis ceylonensis — DAS 1996: 54 Balanophis ceylonensis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 89 Rhabdophis ceylonensis — TAKEUCHI et al. 2018
Distribution	Sri Lanka Type locality: “Ceylon”
Reproduction	oviparous
Types	Holotype: BMNH 1946.1.15.25, subadult male (H. Cuming).
Diagnosis	Unfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 1187 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details.
Comment	Frank & Ramus (1995) list this species as “Rhabdophis ceylonensis GÜNTHER 1864” (instead of 1858). Type species: Tropidonotus chrysargus var. ceylonensis GÜNTHER 1858 is the type species of the genus Balanophis SMITH 1938.
Etymology	Named after its distribution on Ceylon (= Sri Lanka).
References	Boulenger, G.A. 1893. Catalogue of the snakes in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) I. London (Taylor & Francis), 448 pp. - get paper here Gabadage, Dinesh; Thilina Surasinghe, Anslem de Silva,<br />Ruchira Somaweera, Buddhika Madurapperuma, Majintha Madawala & Suranjan Karunarathna, 2018. Ecological and zoological study of endemic Sri Lankan keelback (Balanophis ceylonensis): with implications for its conservation. Vert. Zool. 68 (3): 225–236 - get paper here Günther, A. 1858. Catalogue of Colubrine snakes of the British Museum. London, I - XVI, 1 - 281 - get paper here Murphy, J. C.; Voris, H. K.; Karns, D. R. 1994. A field guide and key to the snakes of the Danum Valley, A bornean tropical rainforest ecosystem. Bull. Chicago Herp. Soc. 29: 133-151 O’Shea, M. 2018. The Book of Snakes. Ivy Press / Quarto Publishing, London, - get paper here Pyron, R. Alexander; H.K. Dushantha Kandambi, Catriona R. Hendry, Vishan Pushpamal, Frank T. Burbrink, Ruchira Somaweera 2013. Genus-level phylogeny of snakes reveals the origins of species richness in Sri Lanka. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 66 (3): 969-978 - get paper here Samarawickrama, V.A.M.P.K.; H.I.G.C. Kumara, D.R.N.S. Samarawickrama 2019. Diversity of Reptiles in the Eastern and Southern parts of the Sinharaja Rain Forest. Journal of Tropical Forestry and Environment - get paper here Smith, M. A. 1938. The nucho-dorsal glands of snakes. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 107B: 575-583 Smith, M.A. 1943. The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, Including the Whole of the Indo-Chinese Sub-Region. Reptilia and Amphibia. 3 (Serpentes). Taylor and Francis, London. 583 pp. Takeuchi, H., Savitzky, A. H., Ding, L., Silva, A., Das, I., Nguyen, T. T., … Mori, A. 2018. Evolution of nuchal glands, unusual defensive organs of Asian natricine snakes (Serpentes: Colubridae), inferred from a molecular phylogeny. Ecology and Evolution 8 (20): 10219–10232 - get paper here Wall, FRANK 1921. Ophidia Taprobanica or the Snakes of Ceylon. Colombo Mus. (H. R. Cottle, govt. printer), Colombo. xxii, 581 pages - 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. Weinstein, Scott A. 2017. Non-Front-Fanged Colubroid Snakes. In: J. Brent et al. (eds.), Critical Care Toxicology. Springer Verlag, pp. 2453-2492 - get paper here
External links	IUCN Red List National Center for Biotechnology Information http://www.SriLankanReptiles.com/Snakes/Colubridae.html Google images

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