Dendrelaphis andamanensis (ANDERSON, 1871)
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Dendrelaphis andamanensis
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| Higher Taxa | Colubridae, Ahaetuliinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Andaman Bronze-back G: Andamanen-Bronzenatter |
| Synonym | Dendrophis picta var. andamanensis ANDERSON 1871: 184 Dendrophis boiga andamanensis — STEJNEGER 1933 Ahaetulla ahaetulla andamanensis — SMITH 1943:244. Dendrelaphis andamanensis — VOGEL & VAN ROOIJEN 2011 Dendrelaphis andamanensis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 215 |
| Distribution | India (Andaman Islands) Type Locality: ‘‘Andamans’’ |
| Reproduction | oviparous. |
| Types | Holotype: ZSI (ZSIC) 7714 (Das et al., 1998). |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: A species of Dendrelaphis, characterized by the combination of (1) vertebral scales strongly enlarged, larger than the dorsals of the first row; (2) 176–196 ventrals; (3) 125– 146 divided subcaudals; (4) 15 dorsal scale rows at midbody; (5) anal shield divided; (6) one loreal scale; (7) two supralabials touching the eye; (8) a short first sublabial that usually touches two infralabials (five infralabials on one side in one specimen); (9) 11–16 temporal scales; (10) two to three postoculars; (11) maximum total length 120.0 cm; (12) Rel TAIL 0.30–0.34; (13) a narrow temporal stripe that starts before the eye, covers only the lower edge of the temporal region and does not extend onto the neck; (14) the absence of a light ventrolateral stripe; (15) a bright grass-green coloration in living specimens (Fig. 5) as opposed to the brown/blue coloration in D. cyanochloris. Unfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 48 characters) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. |
| Comment | Distribution: D. andamanensis has been erroneously reported from the Great Nicobar Islands (Biswas and Sanyal, 1977) which actually originated from the Andamans (Vijayakumar and David, 2006). As a result, Das (1999) considered D. pictus var. andamanensis to be an erroneous report for Andaman’s fauna while considering D. cyanochloris to be an inhabitant of the Andamans. Similar species: Dendrelaphis pictus var. andamanensis has been wrongly identified as Dendrelaphis cyanochloris in the literature (e.g., Cox et al., 1998; Das, 2002; Whitaker and Captain, 2004). However, D. andamanensis cannot be confused with D. pictus because of its bright green coloration and absence of a ventrolateral line. The picture in Whitaker and Captain (2004: 177) titled Dendrelaphis pictus andamanensis is in fact Dendrelaphis humayuni, Tiwari and Biswas, 1973. Behavior: diurnal Habitat: fully arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018) |
| Etymology | Named after the type locality. |
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