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Lycodon aulicus (LINNAEUS, 1758)

IUCN Red List - Lycodon aulicus - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaColubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Indian Wolf Snake, Common Wolf Snake
G: Gewöhnliche Wolfszahnnatter
Chinese: 白环蛇 
SynonymColuber aulicus LINNAEUS 1758: 220
Natrix aulica — LAURENTI 1768: 74
Lycodon unicolor BOIE 1827 (fide SMITH 1943)
Lycodon subfuscus CANTOR 1839 (fide SMITH 1943)
Lycodon atropurpureus CANTOR 1839 (fide SMITH 1943)
Boaedon unicolor — DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854: 359
Lycodon aulicum — DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854: 369
Lycodon aulicus — GÜNTHER 1864
Lycodon aulicus — STOLICZKA 1870: 201
Lycodon atropurpureus — BOULENGER 1891: 463
Lycodon aulicus — BOULENGER 1893: 352
Lycodon atropurpureus — BOULENGER 1893: 356
Ophites aulicus — WALL 1921
Lycodon aulicus — WALL 1921: 151
Lycodon aulicus — SMITH 1943: 263
Ophites aulicus — ZHAO & ADLER 1993
Ophites aulicus TEO & RAJATHURAI 1997
Lycodon aulicus — LANZA 1999
Lycodon aulicus — MURTHY 2010
Lycodon aulicus — WALLACH et al. 2014: 391
Lycodon aulicus — WANG et al. 2022 
DistributionIndia (Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, north to Himalyas and Assam; Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra [A. Captain, pers. comm.]; throughout India: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa = Odisha, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkand, Punjab [Dino Aulakh, pers. comm.], Tripura, Mizoram), Mascarene Islands, Pakistan, Nepal (Terai, Dolakha District, Kathmandu valley), Bhutan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka (David & Vogel 1996), Bangladesh, China (Fujian, Yunnan)

Type locality: “America” (in error). “India” fide KRAMER 1977  
Reproductionoviparous. Eight to 16 elongated eggs (28 × 12 mm) are laid in 2–3 bunches of 3–5 eggs each (Khan 2014) 
TypesHolotype: NRM (Stockholm)
Other specimens: TNHM (Kerala), see Ganesh et al. 2025. 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (genus): Species of the genus Lycodon are characterized by (1) their strongly arched maxillary bone bending inwards anteriorly, having three to six enlarged and fang-like anterior maxillary teeth without venomous grooves, increasing in size posteriorly, separated by a diastema from the posterior seven to fifteen teeth, posteriorly increasing in size, the last two being enlarged; (2) rounded orbit with vertical elliptic pupil; (3) smooth or weakly keeled dorsal scales in rows of 15–21 (Smith 1943; Taylor 1965; Lanza 1999; Stuebing et al. 1999; Daltry & Wüster 2002; Das 2010; Vogel & David 2010; Vogel et al. 2009, 2012); (4) most wolf snakes have a distinct or indistinct white or pale brown nuchal collar followed posteriorly by a black to blackish-brown ground color with various white, cream or yellow bands, blotches and speckles (some without pale coloration) on body and tail; (5) the anal plate varies from divided to undivided (Lanza 1999; Daltry & Wüster 2002; Das 2010, Neang et al. 2014).


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CommentFor a discussion of nomenclatorial issues concerning the genera Lycodon and Ophites see Zhao & Adler 1993 (who listed this species under Ophites).

Type species: Coluber aulicus LINNAEUS 158 is the type species of the genus Lycodon FITZINGER 1826: 30, 5 (not BOIE as sometimes stated). See discussion in Adler & Zhao 1995, David et al. 2023, Nguyen et al. 2024.

Synonymy: Figueroa et al. 2016 synonymized Dryocalamus with Lycodon. Dryocalamus is nested within Lycodon (also see the pylogenetic tree in Wostl et al. 2017), hence the Philippine Lycodon must be moved to a new genus or Dryocalamus synonymized with Lycodon. Although Wickramasinghe et al. 2020 argued that Dryocalamus should remain, citing Zaher et al. 2019, the latter authors confirmed that Dryocalamus nests within Lycodon.

Characters: see Janssen et al. 2019: 16 ff for tables of characters across all Lycodon species. Vogel et al. 2024 compares all species of the fasciatus group.

Key: For recent keys to the entire genus see Lanza (1999), and for a recent key to the Philippine Lycodon species see Ota (2000). For a key to South Asian Lycodon species see Ganesh et al. 2020. For a key to the species of Lycodon in China see Wang et al. 2020: 81.

Similar species: Lycodon capucinus (both aulicus and capucinus are “almost indistinguishable” (O’Shea et al. 2018).

Distribution: Taylor 1922 reported Ophites aulicus from the Philippines; however, Leviton et al. 2018 treated L. aulicus as a synonym of L. capucinus. For a map see Sindaco et al. 2013.

Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018).

Genome: Ruchira et al. 2025. 
EtymologyNamed after Latin aulicus = princely, without any explanation or description by Linnaeus 1758.

Etymology (genus): named after Greek lykos = wolf, and Greek “odous, odontos” = tooth, i.e. wolf teeth. Genus names ending in -odon are typically masculine. 
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