The snake family Psammophiidae (Reptilia: Serpentes): Phylogenetics and species delimitation in the African sand snakes (Psammophis Boie, 1825) and allied genera

Molecular phylogeny of advanced snakes (Serpentes, Caenophidia) with an emphasis on South American Xenodontines: a revised classification and descriptions of new taxa

“…Hemipenes extremely reduced, threadlike (Bogert, 1940); sulcus spermaticus undivided and in centrolineal orientation; differentiated maxillary and mandibular dentition (Bogert, 1940;Bourgeois, 1968); loss of hypapophyses on posterior trunk vertebrae. Comments: Dromophis Peters, 1869 was recently synonymized with Psammophis (Kelly et al, 2008). Hypapophyses have been lost repeatedly in the evolution of caenophidians but all immediate outgroups to Psammophiidae retain them on the posterior trunk vertebrae.…”

“…The phylogenetic affinities of Scaphiophis Peters, 1870 has been disputed (Zaher, 1999;Vidal et al, 2008). Recently, Kelly et al (2008) included the genus in their molecular analysis, in which it appears nested within colubrines. For this reason, we include this genus in the family Colubridae.…”

“…However, we feel that some of their formally recognized taxa are only weakly supported by their molecular data, or receive conflicting phylogenetic signals in different data sets. These authors made little attempt to analyze the effects of taxon sampling and long branch attraction (Felsenstein, 1978) or repulsion (Siddall & Whiting 1999) in small molecular data matrices, problems that were acknowledged by Kraus & Brown (1998) and Kelly et al (2008), and supported by simulation and other studies (e.g., Goertzen & Theriot, 2003;Salisbury & Kim, 2001). Vidal et al (2007) argued that the problem of long branch attraction (and repulsion) in more basal nodes was better addressed through gene sampling rather than taxon sampling, but this will only partially solve the issue.…”

Atlas of the distribution of amphibians and reptiles in the Diawling National Park, Mauritania

“…General patterns of habitat selection were observed among the amphibians and reptiles in the study area ( Kelly et al, 2008).…”

New Taxa and Cryptic Species of Neotropical Snakes (Xenodontinae), with Commentary on Hemipenes as Generic and Specific Characters

“…The analogy is particularly apparent when Eutrachelophis bassleri, E. steinbachi, and other ''xenodontines'' are compared with the colubrids of Madagascar. One Madagascan colubrid, Mimophis, differs from other Madagascan forms, as well as from all ''xenodontines,'' in the greatly reduced hemipenis; it is a psammophiid and seemingly represents an independent Madagascan invasion separate from other colubrids (Cadle, 2003;Nagy et al, 2003;Kelly et al, 2008). Putting aside Mimophis, all the other Madagascan colubrids represent a monophyletic clade (Pseudoxyrhophiinae), all members of which differ from Eutrachelophis bassleri and E. steinbachi in the presence of strong hypapophyses on the posterior vertebrae, even though these two Neotropical snakes agree with all Madagascan colubrids in lack of hemipenial calyces and show a particular resemblance to Thamnosophis lateralis (but not to Liopholidophis sexlineatus) and to Dromicodryas in the construction of the orbital region of the skull.…”