Psammophis sudanensis WERNER, 1919
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Psammophis sudanensis
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| Higher Taxa | Psammophiidae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Northern stripe-bellied sand snake F: Psammophis soudanien G: Sudanesische Sandrennnatter |
| Synonym | Psammophis subtaeniatus sudanensis WERNER 1919: 504 Psammophis subtaeniatus sudanensis — LOVERIDGE 1955 Psammophis subtaeniatus sudanensis — ROBERTSON et al. 1961 Psammophis subtaeniatus sudanensis — BROADLEY 1966 Psammophis subtaeniatus sudanensis — PITMAN 1974 Psammophis cf. rukwae — BÖHME 1978: 402, fig. 17 (left) (not BROADLEY) Psammophis cf. rukwae — JOGER 1982: 332, fig. 8 Psammophis leucogaster — SPAWLS 1983: 11 Psammophis rukwae — BÖHME 1986: 172 (part) (not Broadley) Psammophis rukwae — BÖHME & SCHNEIDER 1987: 259 Psammophis subtaeniatus subsp. — BÖHME 1987: 85 (Darfur) Psammophis subtaeniatus orientalis — BRANDSTÄTTER 1995: 194 (part) (not BROADLEY) Psammophis sudanensis — LEBRETON 1999 Psammophis sudanensis — SPAWLS et al. 2001 Psammophis sudanensis — TRAPE & MANÉ 2002 Psammophis sudanensis — TRAPE & MANÉ 2005 Psammophis sudanensis — CHIRIO & INEICH 2006 Psammophis sudanensis leucogaster — TRAPE & MANÉ 2006: 156 Psammophis sudanensis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 581 Psammophis sudanensis — SPAWLS et al. 2018: 437 Psammophis sudanensis — TRAPE et al. 2019: 70 |
| Distribution | Central African Republic, Uganda, Benin, Ghana, Cameroon, Nigeria, Burkina Faso Type locality: Kadugli, Sudan (Jumhūriyyat), Republic of South Sudan (RSS) |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Lectotype: NMW 19086, a male (F. Werner, 28 March 1914), designated by Tiedemann et al. (1994: 73). |
| Diagnosis | Description. (114 specimens examined) Nostril pierced between 2 nasals; preocular 1, in short contact with or separated from frontal; postoculars 2 (very rarely 1 or 3); temporals basically 2+2+3, but with frequent fusions; supralabials 8 (very rarely 7 or 9), the 4th & 5th (rarely 3rd & 4th or 4th, 5th & 6th) entering orbit; infralabials usually 10 (rarely 9 or 11), the first 4 (very rarely 3 or 5) in contact with anterior sublinguals; dorsal scales in 17-17-13 rows; ventrals 150–180; cloacal divided (entire in type of leucogaster); subcaudals 93–122. Dorsum dark brown, top of head with a black-bordered pale median stripe extending far back on the frontal before forking (Fig. 18), transverse pale markings on back of head; labials immaculate white or speckled with black; vertebral stripe ill-defined in the east, strongly marked in the west, broadening on the nape; pale dorsolateral stripes on scale rows 4 and 5; lower half of outer scale row and ends of ventrals whitish, often separated by a pair of well defined black ventral lines (occasionally ill-defined or absent in West and Central Africa) from a yellow mid-ventral band (Trape et al. 2019: 71). |
| Comment | Probably mildly venomous. Hybridization: Psammophis sudanensis and P. sibilans appear to hybridize (BROADLEY 1966). Distribution: not in Benin fide TRAPE & BALDÉ 2014: 320. Not in Tanzania (Hughes 2018) despite being reported from there by Loveridge (1940: 50). Relationships. The sequences of P. sudanensis from Tanzania and Kenya of Kelly et al. (2008) belong to clade distinct from P. (rukwae) leucogaster, suggesting that they may belong to a cryptic species. However, the pattern of a Kenyan specimen illustrated by Spawls et al. (2002) is similar to those of our specimens from West Africa and Chad. Some rare specimens from Chad are uniformly beige dorsally (e.g. IRD 2871.N and 2884.N) (Trape et al. 2019). |
| Etymology | Named after the type locality. |
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