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Stegonotus muelleri DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL, 1854

IUCN Red List - Stegonotus muelleri - Near Threatened, NT
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Higher TaxaColubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Philippine groundsnake, Müller’s Ratsnake
E: Duméril's Wolf Snake [dumerilii] 
SynonymStegonotus Mülleri DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854: 682
Herpetodryas Mülleri — JAN 1863: 81
Spilotes samarensis PETERS 1861: 685
Stegonotus muelleri — BOULENGER 1893: 367
Stegonotus muelleri — BOETTGER 1898
Stegonotus muelleri — TAYLOR 1922: 129
Stegonotus muelleri — BAUER et al. 1995: 74
Stegonotus mülleri — GAULKE 2010
Stegonotus muelleri — WALLACH et al. 2014: 686
Stegnotus muelleri — SANGUILA et al. 2016 (in error)
Stegonotus muelleri — KAISER et al. 2018: 16

Stegonotus dumerili BOULENGER 1893: 368
Dryocalamus mccroryi TAYLOR 1922
Stegonotus dumerilii — TAYLOR 1922: 130
Lycodon dumerili — LANZA 1999
Dryocalamus mccroryae — MICHELS & BAUER 2004
Dryocalamus mccroryi — DUBOIS 2007
Lycodon dumerilii — WALLACH et al. 2014: 393
Lycodon dumerilii — ZAHER et al. 2019 
DistributionPhilippines (Mindanao, Samar, Leyte, Dinagat)

Type locality: corrected to “southern Philippines” by Kaiser et al. 2018.

Type locality: “Cubo-Cubo, Insel Samar” [Cobocóbo, northern Samar Island, The Philippines]. [samarensis]

dumerilii (invalid): Philippines (Basilan, Mindanao, Samar, Surigao, Daraga, Luzon); Type locality: not designated (from unknown Philippine localities). Restricted to Surigao, Surigao Province, Mindanao.  
Reproductionoviparous (not imputed, fide Zimin et al. 2022) 
TypesHolotype: MNHN-RA 0848 fide Kaiser et al. 2018. Given as MNHN 5764 und 5764a by other sources in error
Holotype: ZMB 4294, adult male. Collected by the German ethnologist and collector Fedor Jagor (1816-1900) during the first half of 1859 [samarensis]
Lectotype: BMNH 77.10.9.67 = 1946.1.15.6, designated by LEVITON 1965. [dumerilii]
Holotype: CAS 60346 [mccroryi] 
DiagnosisUnfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions are available for collaborators and contributors. We will relaease that material sometime next year. Please contact us if you need any of this data earlier than that. 
CommentSynonymy partly after BOULENGER 1893. Bernstein et al. 2026 synonymized Lycodon dumerilii with S. muelleri.

Distribution: the original type locality, “Java”, was given in error.

Type species: Stegonotus Mülleri DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854: 682 is the type species of the genus Stegonotus DUMÉRIL, BIBRON & DUMÉRIL 1854.

Key: O’Shea and Richards 2021 provide a key to the fourteen species of Stegonotus currently recognised from the New Guinea region, and two species from adjacent areas that might occur in the southern regions of New Guinea. Kaiser et al. 2021 provide an updated key. See also Kaiser et al. 2021: 504 (Table 1) for a comparison of characters across 9 species of Stegonotus and a key on p. 508.

Etymology (samarensis): Spilotes samarensis was named after Samar Island, where the type specimen was collected.

Etymology (dumerilii): The species is named after French herpetologist A.M.C. Duméril.

NCBI taxonID: 1335456 [dumerilii]
RDB speciesID: 15931 [dumerilii] 
EtymologyNamed after Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858), German biologist and anatomist. 
References
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