| Higher Taxa | Elapidae (Hydrophiinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Mallee Black-backed Snake |
| Synonym | Hoplocephalus nigriceps GÜNTHER 1863: 362
Denisonia nigrostriata brevicauda MITCHELL 1951: 550
Unechis brevicaudus COGGER 1975
Denisonia nigriceps — STORR 1981
Unechis nigriceps — MENGDEN 1983
Unechis nigriceps — COGGER 1983: 238
Rhinoplocephalus nigriceps — STORR 1984
Suta nigriceps — HUTCHINSON 1990
Suta nigriceps — COGGER 2000: 691
Parasuta nigriceps — GREER 2006 (online)
Parasuta nigriceps — WILSON & SWAN 2010: 492
Parasuta nigriceps — WALLACH et al. 2014: 534
Suta nigriceps — MARYAN et al. 2020 |
| Distribution | Australia (New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia)
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| Reproduction | ovovivparous. |
| Types | Holotype: BMNH 1946.1.20.70, "probably from Australia".
Holotype: SAMA R3137, from Fowler's Bay, S. A. [Denisonia nigrostriata brevicauda]. |
| Diagnosis | Additional details, e.g. a detailed description or comparisons (969 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. |
| Comment | Venomous!
Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). |
| Etymology | Named after the black head, from Latin nigra = black and -ceps, short for head. |
| References |
- Bush, B. 1981. Reptiles of the Kalgoorlie-Esperance Region. B. Bush, Perth, 46 pp - 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.
- Coventry, A. J. 1971. Identification of the black-headed snakes (Denisonia) within Victoria. Victorian Naturalist 88: 304-306 - get paper here
- Günther. A. 1863. Third account of new species of snakes in the collection of the British Museum. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (3) 12: 348 - 365 - get paper here
- Harrington, Sean M; Jordyn M de Haan, Lindsey Shapiro, Sara Ruane 2018. Habits and characteristics of arboreal snakes worldwide: arboreality constrains body size but does not affect lineage diversification. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 125 (1): 61–71 - 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
- MARYAN, BRAD; IAN G. BRENNAN, MARK N. HUTCHINSON, LUKAS S. GEIDANS 2020. What’s under the hood? Phylogeny and taxonomy of the snake genera Parasuta Worrell and Suta Worrell (Squamata: Elapidae), with a description of a new species from the Pilbara, Western Australia. Zootaxa 4778 (1): 1–47 - get paper here
- Mengden, Gregory A. 1983. The taxonomy of Australian elapid snakes: A review. Rec. Austral. Mus. 35 (5): 195-222 - get paper here
- Mitchell, F. J. 1951. The South Australian Reptile Fauna. Part. 1. Ophidia. Rec. South Austral. Mus. 9: 545—557. - get paper here
- Storr, G.M. 1981. The Denisonia gouldii species-group (Serpentes, Elapidae) in Western Australia. Rec. West. Aust. Mus. 8: 501-515 - get paper here
- Swan, G.; Sadlier, R.; Shea, G. 2017. A field guide to reptiles of New South Wales. Reed New Holland, 328 pp.
- 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.
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