Rhinoplocephalus bicolor MÜLLER, 1885

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Higher Taxa	Elapidae (Hydrophiinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies
Common Names	E: Square-nosed Snake, Muller's Snake
Synonym	Rhinoplocephalus bicolor MÜLLER 1885: 690 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — BOULENGER 1896: 353 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — WELCH 1994: 105 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — COGGER 2000: 676 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — WILSON & SWAN 2010 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — WALLACH et al. 2014: 640 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — COGGER 2014: 929 Rhinoplocephalus bicolor — EIPPER & EIPPER 2024: 203
Distribution	Australia (Western Australia) Type locality: "Australia." Emended to Southern Australia by Cogger et al., 1983a: 234.
Reproduction	ovovivparous (Wilson & Swan 2013; but oviparous according to Cogger 2014)
Types	Holotype: NMBA 2190, a 395 mm male.
Diagnosis	Diagnosis: “A group of small to moderate-sized species lacking contrasting dark head coloring (apart from R. nigrostriatus), with glossy midbody scales in 15 rows, anal and subcaudals entire, eye small with black iris. indistinguishable from pupil. Head, slightly to moderately depressed, no canthus. Distinguished externally from some superficially similar species of Suta by deeper, blunter head, absence of contrasting colour pattern (except black-headed R. nigrostriatus) and/or longer tails (subcaudal counts exceed 40 in most species {not boschmai], versus 40 or fewer in most Suta). Further distinguished from other genera by the unique karyotypes (not present in bicolor), 2n = 36 (20 M, 16 M) or 40.” (Hutchinson 1990: 403)
Comment	Venomous! Synonymy: Wallach et al. 2014 included the species of Cryptophis in Rhinoplocephalus. Type species: Rhinoplocephalus bicolor MÜLLER 1885: 690 is the type species of the genus Rhinoplocephalus MÜLLER 1885. Reference images: see Uetz et al. 2024 for high-resolution reference images for this species.
Etymology	Named after Latin bicolor, of two colors, presumably named after the two colors on the dorsal and ventral side of the species.
References	Bush, B. & Maryan, B. 2006. Snakes and Snake-like Reptiles of Southern Western Australia. Snakes Harmful & Harmless, Stoneville, Perth, Western Australia, 40 pp. - get paper here Christensen, P. 1972. New Record of Mueller's Snake, Rhinoplocephalus bicolor. Western Australian Naturalist 12 (4): 88-89 - get paper here Cogger, H. G. 2014. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, 7th ed. CSIRO Publishing, xxx + 1033 pp. - get paper here Cogger, H.G. 2000. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, 6th ed. Ralph Curtis Publishing, Sanibel Island, 808 pp. Eipper T & Eipper S 2024. SNAKES OF AUSTRALIA. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 368 pp. - get paper here Hutchinson M N 1990. The generic classification of the Australian terrestrial elapid snakes. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 29 (3): 397-405 - get paper here Keogh, J. Scott; Richard Shine and Steve Donnellan 1998. Phylogenetic Relationships of Terrestrial Australo-Papuan Elapid Snakes (Subfamily Hydrophiinae) Based on Cytochrome b and 16S rRNA Sequences. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 10 (1): 67–81 - get paper here Müller,F. 1885. Vierter Nachtrag zum Katalog der herpetologischen Sammlung des Basler Museums. Verh. naturf. Ges. Basel 7: 668-717 - get paper here Uetz, P.H.; Patel, M.; Gbadamosi, Z.; Nguyen, A.; Shoope, S. 2024. A Reference Database of Reptile Images. Taxonomy 4: 723–732 - 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. Wilson, S. & Swan, G. 2010. A complete guide to reptiles of Australia, 3rd ed. Chatswood: New Holland, 558 pp.
External links	IUCN Red List National Center for Biotechnology Information http://www.amonline.net.au/herpetology/research/pdf/elapidae.pdf http://www.arod.com.au/arod/reptilia/Squamata/Elapidae/Rhinoplocephalus… Google images

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