Ahaetulla anomala
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ahaetulla anomala | |
|---|---|
 | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Suborder: | Serpentes |
| Family: | Colubridae |
| Subfamily: | Ahaetuliinae |
| Genus: | Ahaetulla |
| Species: | A. anomala |
| Binomial name | |
| Ahaetulla anomala (Annandale, 1906) | |
The variable colored vine snake (Ahaetulla anomala) is a species of opisthoglyphous (rear-fanged venomous) colubrid vine snake found in Bangladesh and India. It is the first reported sexually dichromatic snake from the Indian Subcontinent, and until 2017 was formerly regarded as a subspecies of the green vine snake, Ahaetulla nasuta.[2]
This snake was first described by Thomas Nelson Annandale (the first director of the Zoological Survey of India) in 1906. It was later considered a subspecies of Ahaetulla nasuta in 1943. There has long been taxonomic confusion due to the sexually dimorphic coloring of species, with the green males resembling the long-nosed whip snake (Ahaetulla nasuta), while females are brown in color and physically resemble the brown-speckled whipsnake (Ahaetulla pulverulenta). To resolve this confusion, in 2017, a team of biologists conducted a molecular and morphological study of the snake, ultimately finding it to be a distinct species, closely related to its sister taxon Ahaetulla pulverulenta,[2] as shown in the cladogram below (with possible paraphyletic species noted):[3]
| Ahaetuliinae |
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The status of Ahaetulla anomala as a separate species is still in dispute, as a 2020 study found A. anomala to be possibly conspecific with Ahaetulla oxyrhyncha.[4]
Distribution
It is limited to India (Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar) and Bangladesh.[2]