Taxonomic Review of the Genus Herpetoreas (Serpentes: Natricidae), with the Description of a New Species from Tibet, China

Abstract

The taxonomic history of the Amphiesma sensu lato has long been confused, and this complex was recently divided into three genera, i.e., Amphiesma Duméril, Bibron, and Duméril, 1854 sensu stricto, Hebius Thompson, 1913, and Herpetoreas Günther, 1860. Being the least known genus, Herpetoreas is reviewed herein through an integrative taxonomic approach. Our results indicate that specimens previously referred to Hebius parallelus (Boulenger, 1890) from Mêdog, Tibet, China, represent a new species. We describe here this new species and refer it to the genus Herpetoreas; therefore, we remove Hebius parallelus from the Chinese herpetofauna. A diagnostic key to all the species of Herpetoreas is also provided. Furthermore, we re-evaluate the diagnostic characters of the three genera formerly confused with Amphiesma, namely, Amphiesma, Hebius, and Herpetoreas. We provide a key to these three morphologically similar genera. We also emphasize the importance of the maxillary teeth and hemipenial morphology in the generic diagnosis in the family Natricidae.

Systematic Assessment of Hebius beddomei (Günther, 1864) (Serpentes: Colubridae: Natricinae) with Description of a New Genus and a New Allied Species from the Western Ghats, India

“…Recent molecular phylogeny studies on natricine snakes [2,5,20,37] have shed light on the systematics of the members of the group. This has led to several taxonomic changes and further work remains.…”

“…The freshly collected specimens were caught, photographed, and later euthanized using standard euthanasia protocol for reptiles [12]. Morphological data for related species were compared with the relevant literature [3,8,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] and material was examined (see Appendix A) from the natural history museums listed below. Ventral scales were counted according to Dowling [21].…”

Molecular phylogeny reveals cryptic diversity in Sibynophis from China (Serpentes: Sibynophiidae)

“…In recent decades, considerable progress has been made in the phylogeny of Asian snakes. Notably, various systematic issues have been addressed (Guo, Zhu, Liu, Wang, & Nguyen, 2020;Hou et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2021;Poyarkov et al, 2022) and an increasing number of new taxa have been described (Hou et al, 2021;Liu, Zhong, Wang, Liu, & Guo, 2018;Ren, Jiang, Huang, David, & Li, 2022). However, in comparison to well-studied common snake groups, such as Hebiusand Lycodon (Guo et al, 2013;Guo et al, 2014;Hou et al, 2021;Ren et al, 2022), little attention has been paid to rare snake species, such as those in the genus Sibynophis .…”

Molecular phylogeny reveals cryptic diversity in Sibynophis from China (Serpentes: Sibynophiidae)

“…In recent decades, considerable progress has been made in the phylogeny of Asian snakes. Notably, various systematic issues have been addressed (Guo et al, 2020 ; Hou et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021 ; Poyarkov et al, 2022 ), and an increasing number of new taxa have been described (Hou et al, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2018 ; Ren et al, 2022 ). However, in comparison with well‐studied common snake groups, such as Hebius and Lycodon (Guo et al, 2013 , 2014 ; Hou et al, 2021 ; Ren et al, 2022 ), little attention has been paid to rare snake species, such as those in the genus Sibynophis .…”