Oligodon cinereus (GÜNTHER, 1864)
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Oligodon cinereus
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| Higher Taxa | Colubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Günther's Kukri Snake, Ashy Kukri Snake G: Graue Kukrinatter Chinese: 紫棕小头蛇 |
| Synonym | Simotes cinereus GÜNTHER 1864 Oligodon cinereus — SMITH 1940 Simotes swinhonis GÜNTHER 1864 Simotes multifasciatus JAN 1865 (fide SMITH 1943: 215) Simotes cinereus GÜNTHER 1864 Simotes semifasciatus ANDERSON 1871: 16 (fide SMITH 1943: 215) Simotes violaceus BOULENGER 1890 (non CANTOR; fide SMITH 1943) Holarchus dolleyanus COPE 1895: 423 Holarchus violaceus swinhonis — MELL 1931 [1929] Simotes violaceus pallidocinctus BOURRET 1934 Holarchus violaceus tamdaoensis BOURRET 1935: 7 Holarchus lightfooti — RENDAHL 1937: 24 Oligodon cinereus — TAYLOR 1965: 757 Oligodon swinhonis tamdaoensis HU et al. 1973 Oligodon cinereus — DAS 1996: 58 Oligodon sp. — ZIEGLER 2002 Oligodon cinereus — STUART et al. 2006 Oligodon cinereus — GEISSLER et al. 2011 (non O. cinereus GÜNTHER 1864) Oligodon cattienensis VASSILIEVA et al. 2013 Oligodon cattienensis — KWET 2014 (in error) Oligodon cinereus — WALLACH et al. 2014: 495 Oligodon cinereus — WANG et al. 2022 Oligodon cinereus pallidocinctus — DAVID et al. 2022 Oligodon cinereus tamdaoensis — DAVID et al. 2022 Oligodon plurimaculatus tamdaoensis — DAVID et al. 2022 Oligodon cattienensis — DO et al. 2023 Oligodon cinereus pallidocinctus — DO et al. 2023 |
| Distribution | India (Assam; Arunachal Pradesh [A. Captain, pers. comm.], Mizoram), Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam (Binh Thuan etc.), Myanmar (= Burma), Thailand, N West Malaysia, China (westward to Yunnan, incl. Hong Kong and Hainan, Guangxi, Fujian, Guangdong, Hong Kong) Type locality: “Gamboja”, now Cambodia. cattienensis: S Vietnam (Dong Nai Province); Type locality: environs of Ben Cu forest station, Nam Cat Tien sector, Cat Tien National Park, Dong Nai Province, southern Vietnam (11°26' 03" N, 107° 25' 42" E, 130 m elevation). |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Holotype: BMNH RR 1946.1.1.25 (adult male). Holotype: ANSP 11432; China, Hainan [dolleyanus] Holotype: ZMMU R–13865 (field ID ZMMU NAP–02281), adult male, collected by Anna B. Vassilieva on 20 January 2011. Paratypes. ZMMU R–13815 (field ID ZMMU NAP–02165), adult male (roadkill) from type locality: Nam Cat Tien sector, Cat Tien National Park, Dong Nai Province, southern Vietnam (11°25' 43" N, 107° 25' 38" E, 148 m a.s.l.) collected on 13 March 2012 by Eduard A. Galoyan; ZMMU R–13815 (field ID ZMMU NAP–02189), subadult female from type locality (11°27' 03" N, 107° 21' 52" E, 167 m a.s.l.) collected on 04 April 2012 by Eduard A. Galoyan; ZMMU R–13866 (field ID ZMMU NAP–02240), adult male from type locality (11°26' 23" N, 107°25' 33" E; 143 m a.s.l.), collected on 17 December 2012 by Anna B. Vassilieva; ZMMU R–11473, juvenile of undetermined gender from type locality, collected on 16 March 2003 by Vladimir V. Bobrov (preliminarily identified as Oligodon sp.); ZFMK 88921 (preliminarily identified as O. cinereus (Geissler et al. 2011), juvenile of unknown gender, from type locality (11°25' 43" N, 107° 25' 38" E, 148 m a.s.l.) collected by Robert Wayne Van Devender on 27 May 2009 [cattienensis] |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: Taylor 1965: 757 Additional details (1471 characters) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. |
| Comment | Distribution: Not listed by GRANDISON 1977 for West Malaysia or Singapore. O. cinereus was reported from Borneo by DE ROOIJ (1917) under the name O. violaceus, but does not occur on Borneo according to MALKMUS et al. (2002). Specimens from Thailand identified as Oligodon cinereus multifasciatus and Oligodon cinereus swinhonis (Günther, 1864) are referred to Oligodon joynsoni (Smith, 1917) according to DAVID et al. 2011. Possibly in Bhutan (Lenz 2012). Subspecies: A morphologically variable species, Oligodon cinereus shows a variety of dorsal patterns (see Smith 1943), which have been used as a basis for describing several subspecies. However, the current intraspecific taxonomy of this species remains unresolved. Wagner (1975) showed in his unpublished MSc thesis that the differences between the various subspecies were unclear. Wagner refrained from accepting subspecies, a position that was followed by DAVID et al. 2011. O. cinereus is really several species (O. cinereus Günther (including O. v. pallidocinctus Bourret), O. swinhonis (Günther), O. multifasciatus (Jan) (including S. v. tamdaoensis Bourret), O. poilani (Bourret) (including S. v. plurimaculatus Bourret) [F. WAGNER, pers. comm.]. The original description is available online (see link below). Synonymy: Yushchenko et al. 2023 synonymized O. cattienensis with O. cinereus. These are quite variable species with brownish, greyish, or even greenish base color. See Figure 4 in VASSILIEVA et al. 2013 and Yushchenko et al. 2023: 76 (Fig. 1). |
| Etymology | Named after its color, Latin “cinis, cineris” = ash. O. cattienensis was named after its type locality, the Cat Tien National Park. Established in 1978, and covering about 72.000 hectares, CTNP is one of the most important areas for the conservation of biodiversity of the lowland forests in southern Indochina. |
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