Pareas formosensis (VAN DENBURGH, 1909)
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Pareas formosensis
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| Higher Taxa | Pareidae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Formosa Slug Snake, Taiwan Slug Snake Vietnamese: Rắn hổ mây đài loan |
| Synonym | Amblycephalus formosensis VAN DENBURGH 1909: 55 Psammodynastes compressus OSHIMA 1910: 201 Eberhardtia tonkinensis ANGEL 1920 (part.) Amblycephalus carinatus hainanus SMITH 1923 (part.) Amblycephalus formosensis — MAKI 1931: 147 Amblycephalus tonkinensis — BOURRET 1935: 10 Amblycephalus tonkinensis — BOURRET 1937: 79 Pareas hamptoni — SMITH 1943: 120 (part.) Amblycephalus tonkinensis — DEUVE 1961: 30 (part) Pareas formosensis — HU et al. 1980 Dipsas hamptoni — NGUYEN & HO 1996 (part) Pareas hamptoni — ZIEGLER 2002: 245 (part) Pareas hamptoni tonkinensis — ZIEGLER et al. 2007 (part) Pareas formosensis — GUO & DENG 2008 Pareas formosensis — GUO et al. 2011 Pareas formosensis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 535 Pareas hamptoni — VOGEL 2015 (part) Pareas tonkinensis — ZAHER et al. 2019 Amblycephalus tokinensis — BHOSALE et al. 2021 (in error) Pareas (Eberhardtia) formosensis — POYARKOV et al. 2022 |
| Distribution | Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Laos (Xékong, Champasak, Khammouan) Type locality: Kanshirei, Formosa |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Holotype: CAS 18006 Holotype: NSMT H02567 (Tokyo) [compressus] Holotype: MNHN-RA-1908.206 [tonkinensis] |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis. Loreal and preocular distinct; a long subocular separating eye from labials; prefrontal entering eye; scales smooth: eye bordered by four shields; gastrosteges 171; urosteges 80. (Van Denburgh 1909: 55) |
| Comment | Synonymy partly after ZHAO & ADLER 1993, Jiang (2004) and Guo & Deng 2009, and Ding et al. 2020. Amblycephalus komaii MAKI 1931 has been removed from the synonymy of P. formosensis and revalidated by YOU et al. 2015. You et al. (2015) and Bhosale et al. (2020) showed that most populations of south-eastern China and Vietnam, and implicitly northern Laos, referred to as Pareas hamptoni (Boulenger, 1905) in the literature, are not conspecific with the holotype, originating from the Mandalay Region in Myanmar, and other populations of P. hamptoni inhabiting Myanmar but are indeed referable to Pareas formosensis (Van Denburgh, 1909), previously considered endemic to Taiwan. Similar species: Pareas formosensis and P. chinensis share very similar coloration and scale patterns (Jiang 2004). However, our molecular phylogenetic results indicate that the two species are not especially closely related within Pareas. Pareas formosensis is the sister species to P. hamptoni, and P. chinensis the sister of P. boulengeri (Rao and Yang, 1992). Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). Type species: Eberhardtia tonkinensis ANGEL 1920 is the type species of the subgenus Eberhardtia ANGEL 1920, fide Poyarkov et al. 2022: 74 |
| Etymology | Named after its distribution in Taiwan (= Formosa). The subgenus Eberhardtia Angel (1920) was named after the collector of the single specimen of its type species, the French botanist Philippe Albert Eberhardt (1874–1942). |
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