Micrelaps muelleri BOETTGER, 1880
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Micrelaps muelleri
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| Higher Taxa | Micrelapidae, Elapoidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Mueller's two-headed snake G: Erdviper |
| Synonym | Micrelaps muelleri BOETTGER 1880: 137 Micrelaps muelleri — DE WITTE & LAURENT 1947 Micrelaps moelleri — DISI 1985 (fide ZOOLOGICAL RECORD) Micrelaps muelleri — BISCHOFF & SCHMIDTLER 1997 Micrelaps muelleri — VENCHI & SINDACO 2006 Micrelaps tchernovi WERNER in WERNER et al. 2006 Micrelaps tchernovi — WALLACH et al. 2014: 438 Micrelaps muelleri — WALLACH et al. 2014: 438 Micrelaps muelleri — MEIRI et al. 2019 Micrelaps tchernovi — MEIRI et al. 2019 Micrelaps muelleri — JAMISON et al. 2020 Micrelaps muelleri00904 |
| Distribution | Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon Type locality: near Jerusalem, Israel. tchernovi: Israel, Jordan; Type locality: central Jordan Valley |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Lectotype: SMF 20349 (catalogue Boettger 9249a), paralectotype: NMBA 2129 (catalogue Boettger 9249, MERTENS 1967). Holotype: HUJ 16864, female [tchernovi] |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis (tchernovi). A Micrelaps differing from M. muelleri in that the black cross-bands fail to reach the ventraIs, being saddle-like (in M. muelleri the cross-bands form rings); higher average number of cross-bands - 58 (in M. muelleri 45); and usually they are less wide than the light intervals (in M. muelleri usually wider than the intervals). Ventral colouration uniformly black throughout most of the body and tail (in M. muelleri at least some of the black rings are noticed also ventrally) [from WERNER et al. 2006]. |
| Comment | Venomous! However, no cases of any symptoms are known in man. It doesn't bite and its head is not big enough to inflict a wound in humans (Shai Meiri, pers. comm., 18 Jan 2023). Synonymy: Jamison et al. 2020 synonymized Micrelaps tchernovi with M. muelleri. Taxonomy: BISCHOFF & SCHMIDTLER 1997 classify this species as a member of the family Atractaspididae while most others (like AMR et al. 1997) consider it as a colubrid). Recent phylogenetic analyses show that Micrelaps is not closely related with other members of the Aparallactinae, hence it is considered as of unknown affinity (incertae sedis) by most recent authors (e.g. Portillo et al. 2018, Zaher et al. 2019). We made up the family “Micrelapidae” -- there is no such thing yet. While Micrelaps cannot be assigned to any other family, it is firmly placed within the superfamily Elapoidea (Zaher et al. 2019). Type species: Micrelaps muelleri BOETTGER 1880 is the type species of the genus Micrelaps BOETTGER 1880. The genus is also the type genus of the family Micrelapidae (Das et al. 2023) Distribution: For a map see Sindaco et al. 2013 and Bar et al. 2021. |
| Etymology | Named after Friedrich Müller (1834-1895) who worked as physician and zoologist in Basel. M. tchernovi was named after the collector of the holotype, Prof. Eitan Tchernov, 16 September 1935-13 December 2002, co-founder of the Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. |
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