A new species of fossorial natricid snakes of the genus Trachischium Günther, 1858 (Serpentes: Natricidae) from the Himalayas of northeastern India

Abstract

[2][3][4]. The snakes of this genus are poorly studied likely due to their fossorial nature; however, these are common elements of high-elevation herpetofaunal assemblages [3,5,6]. The genus was erected based on types of T. rugosum Gu ¨nther, 1858, now a synonym of T. fuscum, and was placed in the family Colubridae; however, its phylogenetic affinities remained unresolved until recently. Lately, Guo et al. [3,7] showed that Trachischium is sister to a clade including Amphiesma spp., elucidating its deep nested position within Natricidae.Cantor [8] described T. monticola as a member of the genus Calamaria, as Calamaria monticola, from Naga Hills, now in Nagaland, from northeast India, as a species having 224 ventrals and 44 subcaudals, a bright yellow collar and a whitish dorsal line, the ventral being yellow. This species was subsequently reported from several states in northeastern India and the neighbouring countries [4]. In addition to this, two species Cyclophis rubiventer Jerdon, 1870 from Khasi Hills, Meghalaya and Ablabes albiventer Gu ¨nther, 1875 from Darjeeling, western Bengal, bearing 15 rows of dorsal scales, were described, which however were synonymised with T. monticola [1,9]. This taxon, nonetheless, appears to be a complex of cryptic species and

A new species of green pit vipers of the genus Trimeresurus Lacépède, 1804 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Viperidae) from western Arunachal Pradesh, India

“…from central Nepal to Himachal Pradesh in the Western Himalayas (Kramer 1977;Regenass and Kramer 1981;Whitaker and Captain 2004;Sharma et al 2013). This is the second species of snake discovered after Trachischium apteii Bhosale, Gowande & Mirza, 2019(Bhosale et al 2019) from the Arunachal Pradesh expedition led by the authors, which merely reflects the poor nature of biodiversity documentation across northeastern India. Future dedicated surveys conducted across northeastern India will help document biodiversity, which is under threat from numerous development activities that include road widening, agriculture, and hydro-electric projects.…”

A new species of snail-eating snakes of the genus Pareas Wagler, 1830 (Reptilia: Serpentes) from eastern Himalayas, India

“…The discovery of yet another snake species from the same expedition to Arunachal Pradesh, after Trachischium apteii Bhosale, Gowande & Mirza, 2019(Bhosale et al 2019 and Trimeresurus salazar Mirza, Bhosale, Phansalkar, Sawant, Gowande & Patel, 2020(Mirza et al 2020, is not surprising as this region has received less attention in terms of documentation of diversity of reptiles. These discoveries advocate the need for extensive exploration across northeast India as a whole, to document the diversity of reptiles and perhaps other poorly studied taxa.…”

On the taxonomy and systematics of the recently described Lycodon deccanensis Ganesh, Deuti, Punith, Achyuthan, Mallik, Adhikari, Vogel, 2020 (Serpentes, Colubridae) from India

“…Description of a distinct Lycodon deccanensis by Ganesh et al (2020a) merely highlights the poor nature of documentation of snakes in a country as the whole, as several new species have been described in the last five years (Mirza et al 2016, Giri et al 2017, Bhosale et al 2019, Deepak et al 2020. Most of these descriptions were from biodiversity hotspots like the Western Ghats and the Himalayas whereas areas that lie outside biodiversity hotspots receive little attention.…”