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Hydrophis lapemoides (GRAY, 1849)

IUCN Red List - Hydrophis lapemoides - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaElapidae (Hydrophiinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Persian Gulf Sea Snake
Farsi: Mâr-e daryâï-ye khalij-e fârs 
SynonymAturia lapemoides GRAY 1849: 46
Hydrophis lapemoides GÜNTHER 1864
Hydrophis holdsworthii GÜNTHER 1872
Hydrophis stewartii ANDERSON 1872: 399
Hydrophis dayanus STOLICZKA 1872:89 (fide BOULENGER 1890:412)
Distira lapemoides — WERNER 1895
Distira lapemoides — WALL 1909
Lioselasma [sic] lapemidoides [sic]— WALL 1921: 366
Hydrophis lapemoides SMITH 1926
Hydrophis lapemoides — SMITH 1943: 461
Hydrophis lapemidoides [sic] KENNEDY 1937
Aturia lapemoides — WELCH 1994: 25
Chitulia lapemoides — KHARIN 2005
Chitulia lapemoides — KHARIN & DOTSENKO 2012
Hydrophis lapemoides — SANDERS et al. 2012
Chitulia (Chitulia) stewartii — KHARIN 2012
Chitulia (Chitulia) lapemoides — KHARIN 2012
Chitulia lapemoides — WALLACH et al. 2014: 166
Chitulia lapemoides — CHAN-ARD et al. 2015: 277 
DistributionIndian Ocean, Persian Gulf
coasts off Oman, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India (inlcuding Gujarat), Bangladesh,
Malaysia (Penang island), Singapore, Thailand

Type locality: Ceylon, Madras; restricted to Ceylon by TAYLOR 1950.  
Reproductionviviparous 
TypesLectotype: BMNH 1946.1.7.2 (orig. III.3.3.a), a 610 mm female (Zool. Soc. London), designated by Günther, 1864: 375.
Paralectotype: BMNH 1946.1.6.91 (formerly BMNH III.3.3.b; ), "India, Madras" (at present Chennai, 13º 05’N; 80º 17’E, a city in Tamil Nadu State, south-eastern India; in the past Madras Presidency included much of southern India, south of 16° N), fide I. Das, pers. comm. 1 Sep 2017; BMNH 1946.7.9.25, 1946.1.3.88
 
DiagnosisDiagnosis. Head slightly small; [8 supralabials, second in contact with prefrontal, third and fourth or third, fourth and fifth touch eye (Gasperetti 1988)]; body elongate but not markedly slender anteriorly; [290–404 ventrals (Volsøe 1939)], slightly distinguishable from adjacent scales; body scales in thickest part of body more or less quadrangular or hexagonal in shape and juxtaposed; [29–31 scale rows on neck, 41–46 on body (Volsøe 1939; REZAIE-ATAGHOLIPOUR et al. 2016: 153, Figures 4d, 21-22).

A Bangladeshi specimen had the following diagnostic characters: 55 black bands, a dorsal scale composition of 35:51:43, 342 ventrals, one pre-ocular, two post-oculars, 2+3 temporals, 8 supralabials (II largest and contact prefrontals; III–IV contact orbit) and 8 infralabials (I–IV contact genials) (Chowdhury et al. 2021). 
CommentVenomous!

Distribution: Not listed by GRANDISON 1977 for West Malaysia or Singapore. Reports from Gujarat have not been confirmed (Patel & Vyas 2019), but see photos from Naman Trivedi. For a map see Sindaco et al. 2013.

Habitat: marine. 
References
  • Anderson, J. 1872. On some Persian, Himalayan, and other Reptiles. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1872: 371-404 - get paper here
  • Bussarawitt,S.; Rasmussen, A.R. & Andersen, M. 1989. A preliminary study on sea snakes (Hydrophiidae) from Phuket Harbor, Phuket Island, Thailand. Nat. Hist. Bull. Siam Soc., Bangkok 37 (2): 209-225
  • Buzás, Balázs; Balázs Farkas, Eszter Gulyás & Csaba Géczy 2018. The sea snakes (Elapidae: Hydrophiinae) of Fujairah. Tribulus 26: 4-31
  • Carranza S, Xipell M, Tarroso P, Gardner A, Arnold EN, Robinson MD, et al. 2018. Diversity, distribution and conservation of the terrestrial reptiles of Oman (Sauropsida, Squamata). PLoS One 13 (2): e0190389 - get paper here
  • Chan-ard, T., Parr, J.W.K. & Nabhitabhata, J. 2015. A field guide to the reptiles of Thailand. Oxford University Press, NY, 352 pp. [see book reviews by Pauwels & Grismer 2015 and Hikida 2015 for corrections] - get paper here
  • Chowdhury MAW, Islam MR, Auawal A, Uddin H, Hasan N, Haidar IKA 2021. On the occurrence of Persian Gulf Sea Snake, Hydrophis lapemoides (Gray, 1849) (Reptilia, Squamata, Elapidae, Hydrophiinae), along the coast of Bangladesh. Check List 17(4): 1075-1080 - get paper here
  • Corkill, N. L. and Cochrane, J. A. 1966. The snakes of the Arabian Peninsula and Socotra. J. Bombay nat. Hist. Soc. 62 (3): 475-506 (1965) - get paper here
  • Ganesh, S., Nandhini, T., Samuel, V., Sreeraj, C., Abhilash, K., Purvaja, R., & Ramesh, R. 2019. Marine snakes of Indian coasts: historical resume, systematic checklist, toxinology, status, and identification key. Journal of Threatened Taxa, 11(1), 13132-13150 - get paper here
  • Gemel, R.; G. Gassner & S. Schweiger 2019. Katalog der Typen der Herpetologischen Sammlung des Naturhistorischen Museums Wien – 2018. Ann. Naturhist. Mus. Wien, B 121: 33–248
  • Gray, J. E. 1849. Catalogue of the specimens of snakes in the collection of the British Museum. Edward Newman, London, i-xv; 1-125. - get paper here
  • Günther, A. 1864. The Reptiles of British India. London (Taylor & Francis), xxvii + 452 pp. - get paper here
  • Kharin, V.E. 2012. Sea Snakes of the Genus Chitulia Gray, 1849 (Serpentes: Hydrophiidae). The Taxonomic Status of Intrageneric Complexes. Russian Journal of Marine Biolog 38 (6): 456-458 - get paper here
  • Kharin, V.E. & Dotsenko I.B. 2012. The First Record of the Sea Snake Chitulia inornata Gray, 1849 from the Arabian Sea with Notes on the Composition of the Genus Chitulia Gray, 1849 (Serpentes: Hydrophiidae). [in Russian and English]. Russian Journal of Marine Biology 38 (1): 35–42 - get paper here
  • Kharin, Vladimir E. and Vladimir P. Czeblukov 2007. On First Reliable Record of the Sea Snake Chitulia belcheri (Gray, 1849) from Australian Waters, with Notes on Species Composition and Taxonomic Status of the Genus Chitulia (Serpentes, Hydrophiidae). Russian Journal of Marine Biology, 33 (3): 161–165. - get paper here
  • Rajabizadeh, M. 2017. Snakes of Iran. [in Farsi] Tehran: Iranshenasi, 496 pp. - get paper here
  • Rasmussen,A.R. 1993. The status of the Persian Gulf sea snake Hydrophis lapemoides (Gray 1849) (Serpentes: Hydrophiidae) [includes a redescription]. Bull. nat. Hist. Mus. Lond. (zool.) 59 (2): 97-105
  • RASTEGAR-POUYANI, NASRULLAH; HAJI GHOLI KAMI, MEHDI RAJABZADEH, SOHEILA SHAFIEI AND STEVEN CLEMENT ANDERSON 2008. Annotated Checklist of Amphibians and Reptiles of Iran. Iranian Journal of Animal Biosystematics 4 (1): 7-30
  • Rezaie-Atagholipour M, Ghezellou P, Hesni MA, Dakhteh SMH, Ahmadian H, Vidal N 2016. Sea snakes (Elapidae, Hydrophiinae) in their westernmost extent: an updated and illustrated checklist and key to the species in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. ZooKeys 622: 129–164, doi: 10.3897/zookeys.622.9939 - get paper here
  • Sanders, K.L.; Michael S.Y. Lee, Mumpuni, Terry Bertozzi, Arne R. Rasmussen 2012. Multilocus phylogeny and recent rapid radiation of the viviparous sea snakes (Elapidae: Hydrophiinae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 66 (3): 575-591 - get paper here
  • Sharma, R. C. 2004. Handbook Indian Snakes. AKHIL BOOKS, New Delhi, 292 pp.
  • Sindaco, R.; Alberto Venchi & Cristina Grieco 2013. The Reptiles of the Western Palearctic, Volume 2: Annotated Checklist and Distributional Atlas of the Snakes of Europe, North Africa, Middle East and Central Asia, with an Update to Volume 1. Edizioni Belvedere, Latina (Italy), 543 pp. - get paper here
  • Smith, M.A. 1943. The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, Including the Whole of the Indo-Chinese Sub-Region. Reptilia and Amphibia. 3 (Serpentes). Taylor and Francis, London. 583 pp.
  • Somaweera, R. & N. Somaweera 2009. An overview of Sri Lankan Sea snakes with an annotated checklist and a field key. Taprobanica 1 (1): 43-54 - get paper here
  • Taylor, Edward H. 1950. The snakes of Ceylon. Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull. 33 (14): 519-603 - get paper here
  • Volsøe, H. 1939. The sea-snakes of the Iranian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Danish Scientific Investigation in Iran 1: 9-45
  • Vyas, Raju 2007. Present conservation scenario of reptile fauna in Gujarat State, India. Indian Forester, Oct 2007: 1381-1394 - get paper here
  • Wall, FRANK 1921. Ophidia Taprobanica or the Snakes of Ceylon. Colombo Mus. (H. R. Cottle, govt. printer), Colombo. xxii, 581 pages - 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.
  • Werner,F. 1895. Über eine Sammlung von Reptilien aus Persien, Mesopotamien und Arabien. Verh. Zool.-Bot. Ges. Wien 45: 13-22 - get paper here
 
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