A new species of lycodon (serpentes: colubridae) from the deccan plateau of india, with notes on the range of lycodon travancoricus (beddome, 1870) and a revised key to peninsular indian forms

Ganesh, SR and Deuti, K and Punith, KG and Achyuthan, NS and Mallik, AK and Adhikari, O and Vogel, G (2020) A new species of lycodon (serpentes: colubridae) from the deccan plateau of india, with notes on the range of lycodon travancoricus (beddome, 1870) and a revised key to peninsular indian forms. In: Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, 14 (3). pp. 74-83.

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Abstract

A new species of wolf snake, Lycodon deccanensis sp. nov., is described from southern India, from the hill ranges situated in the Deccan Plateau adjacent to the Southern Eastern Ghats and the Mysore uplands. The new species somewhat resembles, and has previously been confused with, another predominantly wetzone taxon Lycodon travancoricus. The new species can be diagnosed by the following combination of characters: dorsal scale rows 16–17:17:15; usually 9 supralabials; ventrals 181–201; subcaudals 68–74, divided; an undivided anal scale; loreal in contact with internasal; nasal not in contact with prefrontal, separated by loreal-internasal contact; supraocular usually contacting prefrontal; preocular usually not contacting frontal; and a dorsum that is brownish in adults and blackish in juveniles, with white cross bars. Some previous records of Lycodon travancoricus (sic) from outside the Western Ghats represented the new species, while others were re-identified as L. aulicus and L. anamallensis, effectively restricting the range of L. tarvancoricus to the Western Ghats and Southern Eastern Ghats. Copyright: © 2020 Ganesh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Publisher:	Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Additional Information:	The copyright for this article belongs to Amphibian and Reptile Conservation
Keywords:	Coloration; Deccan plateau; Lycodon deccanensis sp.nov.; Reptilia; scalation; South Arcot; Tumkur
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Ecological Sciences
Date Deposited:	07 Feb 2023 06:10
Last Modified:	07 Feb 2023 06:10
URI:	https://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/79987

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