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Xylophis stenorhynchus (GÜNTHER, 1875)

IUCN Red List - Xylophis stenorhynchus - Data Deficient, DD
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Higher TaxaPareidae (Xylophiinae), Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Günther's Mountain Snake 
SynonymGeophis stenorhynchus GÜNTHER 1875: 230
Xylophis indicus BEDDOME 1878 (fide SMITH 1943)
Xylophis stenorhynchus — BOULENGER 1890
Xylophis stenorhynchus — BOULENGER 1893: 304
Xylophis stenorhynchus — SMITH 1943: 343
Xylophis stenorhynchus — DAS 1996: 60
Xylophis stenorhynchus — WALLACH et al. 2014: 804 
DistributionIndia (Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu) elevation ca. 1200 m.

Type locality: Travancore, India. Travancore is an historical political region corresponding approximately to the southern part of the current state of Kerala (Fig. 6; Biju 2001).  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesSyntypes: BMNH 1946.1.14.13 (male), BMNH 1946.1.14.14 (male), and BMNH 1946.1.14.15 (female). 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (genus): Colubroid snakes with first (anteriormost) three pairs of infralabial shields reduced to narrow strips, together much smaller than large pair of anterior chin (genial) shields (Deepak et al. 2018).


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CommentType species: Geophis stenorhynchus GÜNTHER 1875: 230 is the type species of the genus Xylophis BEDDOME 1878. Xylophis BEDDOME 1878 is also the type species of the new subfamily, Xylophiinae DEEPAK et al. 2019.

Key: Deepak et al. 2020 and Narayanan et al. 2021, 2025 provided keys to the species of Xylophis.

Abundance: Rare. This is one of the species called 'lost' and 'rediscovered' by Lindken et al. 2024. 
EtymologyNamed after the Greek stenos (= narrow) and Greek rhynchos (ῥύγχος) = snout, trunk.

The genus name Xylophis was not explained on first usage, but probably derives from xylon, the Greek noun for wood (the substance, not an assemblage of trees), perhaps because of this snake’s woody colour or its association with dead wood. Xylophis have previously been referred to as “narrow-headed” (Das, 1987; Whitaker and Captain 2004), “small-headed” (Whitaker, 1978) or “dwarf” (Wall, 1919; Gharpurey, 1933) snakes. 
References
  • Beddome, R.H. 1878. Description of a new genus of snakes of the family Calamaridae, from Southern India. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1878: 576 - get paper here
  • Bhupathy, Subramanian & N. Sathishkumar 2013. Status of reptiles in Meghamalai and its environs, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5 (15): 4953-4961 - get paper here
  • Boulenger, G.A. 1893. Catalogue of the snakes in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) I. London (Taylor & Francis), 448 pp. - get paper here
  • Boulenger, George A. 1890. The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma. Reptilia and Batrachia. Taylor & Francis, London, xviii, 541 pp. - get paper here
  • Deepak, V.; Sara Ruane & David J. Gower 2018. A new subfamily of fossorial colubroid snakes from the Western Ghats of peninsular India. Journal of Natural History, 52:45-46, 2919-2934, DOI: 10.1080/00222933. - get paper here
  • Gower, D.J. & Winkler 2007. Taxonomy of The IndIan snake Xylophis Beddome (Serpentes: Caenophidia), with description of a new species. Hamadryad 31 (2): 315-329 - get paper here
  • Günther,A. 1875. Second report on collections of Indian Reptiles obtained bv the British Museum. Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1875: 224-234 - get paper here
  • Inger, Robert F.;Shaffer, H. Bradley;Koshy, Mammen;Bakde, Ramesh 1984. A report on a collection of amphibians and reptiles from the Ponmudi, Kerala, South India. J. Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. 81 (3): 551-570 - get paper here
  • Lindken T.; Anderson, C. V., Ariano-Sánchez, D., Barki, G., Biggs, C., Bowles, P., Chaitanya, R., Cronin, D. T., Jähnig, S. C., Jeschke, J. M., Kennerley, R. J., Lacher, T. E. Jr., Luedtke, J. A., Liu, C., Long, B., Mallon, D., Martin, G. M., Meiri, 2024. What factors influence the rediscovery of lost tetrapod species? Global Change Biology, 30: 1-18 - get paper here
  • Narayanan, S., Das, S., Ghosh, A., Palot, M.J., Umesh, P., Gower, D.J. & Deepak, V. 2025. Hidden in the Sky Islands: A new species of Xylophis Beddome, 1878 (Serpentes: Pareidae: Xylophiinae) from montane habitats of Wayanad in the Western Ghats of India. Zootaxa, 5666 (4): 509–528 - get paper here
  • Palot, M.J. 2015. A checklist of reptiles of Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 7(13): 8010–8022 - get paper here
  • Ruane, S. and Austin, C. C. 2017. Phylogenomics using formalin-fixed and 100+ year old intractable natural history specimens. Molecular Ecology Resources, doi:10.1111/1755-0998.12655 - get paper here
  • Sharma, R. C. 2004. Handbook Indian Snakes. AKHIL BOOKS, New Delhi, 292 pp.
  • 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.
  • 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.
 
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