Suta nigriceps (GÜNTHER, 1863)

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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)
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
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. Ukuwela, K.D.B., de Silva, A., Sivaruban, A. et al. 2022. Diversity, distribution, and natural history of the marine snakes of Sri Lanka. Marine Biodiversity 52, 24 (2022) - 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.kingsnake.com/oz/snakes/elapids/elapids.htm http://www.amonline.net.au/herpetology/research/pdf/elapidae.pdf http://www.arod.com.au/arod/reptilia/Squamata/Elapidae/Parasuta/nigriceps Google images

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