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
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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