Lycodon
Genus of snakes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lycodon is a genus of snakes, commonly known as wolf snakes,[3] in the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae.The Neo-Latin name Lycodon is derived from the Greek words λύκος (lykos) meaning wolf and οδόν (odon) meaning tooth,[4] and refers to the fang-like anterior maxillary and mandibular teeth.[2] The species in the genus Lycodon are nonvenomous, but many members strongly resemble the venomous kraits (genus Bungarus) in appearance, an example of Batesian mimicry.
| Lycodon | |
|---|---|
| |
| Lycodon aulicus | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Suborder: | Serpentes |
| Family: | Colubridae |
| Subfamily: | Colubrinae |
| Genus: | Lycodon Fitzinger, 1826[1] |
| Species | |
|
See text. | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Cercaspis, Coluber, Leptorhytaon, Ophites, Dryocalamus, Sphecodes, Tetragonosoma, Tytleria[2] | |
Fossil record
Fossils of Lycodon are known from the Early Pliocene of Henan.[5]
Species
The genus Lycodon comprises 73 recognized species.[6]
- Lycodon albofuscus (A.M.C. Duméril, Bibron & A.H.A. Duméril, 1854) – dark wolf snake
- Lycodon alcalai Ota & Ross, 1994 – Alcala's wolf snake
- Lycodon anakradaya A.T. Nguyen, Duong, Wood & Grismer, 2022
- Lycodon aulicus (Linnaeus, 1758) – Indian wolf snake, common wolf snake
- Lycodon banksi Luu et al., 2018 – Banks's wolf snake
- Lycodon bibonius Ota & Ross, 1994 – Ota's wolf snake
- Lycodon bicolor (Nikolsky, 1903) – Mackinnon's wolf snake
- Lycodon butleri Boulenger, 1900 – Butler's wolf snake
- Lycodon capucinus F. Boie, 1827 – common wolf snake
- Lycodon cardamomensis Daltry & Wüster, 2002
- Lycodon carinatus (Kuhl, 1820) – Ceylon wolf snake
- Lycodon cathaya J. Wang, Qi, Lyu, Zeng & Y.-Y. Wang, 2020 – Huaping wolf snake
- Lycodon cavernicolus Grismer et al., 2011 – Gua Wang Burma wolf snake
- Lycodon chapaensis (Angel & Bourret, 1933) – Namdong wolf snake
- Lycodon chithrasekarai Wickramasinghe et al., 2020 – Chithrasekara's bridle snake
- Lycodon chrysoprateros Ota & Ross, 1994 – Ross's wolf snake
- Lycodon davidi G. Vogel et al., 2012 – David's wolf snake
- Lycodon davisonii (Blanford, 1878) – Blanford's bridal snake
- Lycodon deccanensis Ganesh, Deuti, Punith, Achyuthan, Mallik, Adhikari & G. Vogel, 2020
- Lycodon dumerili (Boulenger, 1893) – Duméril's wolf snake
- Lycodon effraenis Cantor, 1847 – brown wolf snake
- Lycodon fasciatus (J. Anderson, 1879)
- Lycodon fasciolatus (Shaw, 1802) – banded wolf snake
- Lycodon fausti Gaulke, 2002 – Faust's wolf snake
- Lycodon ferroni Lanza, 1999 – Ferron's Asian wolf snake
- Lycodon flavicollis Mukherjee & Bhupathy, 2007 – yellow-collared wolf snake
- Lycodon flavomaculatus Wall, 1907 – yellow-spotted wolf snake
- Lycodon flavozonatus (Pope, 1928) – yellow-banded big tooth snake, yellow-spotted wolf snake, big-tooth snake
- Lycodon futsingensis (Pope, 1928)
- Lycodon gammiei (Blanford, 1878) – Gammie's wolf snake, Sikkim false wolf snake
- Lycodon gibsonae G. Vogel & David, 2019 – Gibson's wolf snake
- Lycodon gongshan G. Vogel & Luo, 2011 – Gongshan wolf snake
- Lycodon gracilis (Günther, 1864) – scarce bridal snake
- Lycodon hypsirhinoides (Theobald, 1868)
- Lycodon irwini (Naveen, Mirza, Choure & Chandramouli, 2025) - Irwin's wolf snake
- Lycodon jara (Shaw, 1802) – twin-spotted wolf snake
- Lycodon kundui M.A. Smith, 1943
- Lycodon laoensis Günther, 1864 – Laotian wolf snake
- Lycodon latifasciatus Nguyen, Lee, Jiang, Ding, May Thu Chit, Poyarkov & Vogel, 2025 - East Himalayan Banded Wolf Snake
- Lycodon liuchengchaoi Zhang et al., 2011
- Lycodon meridionalis (Bourret, 1935)
- Lycodon muelleri A.M.C. Duméril, Bibron & A.H.A. Duméril, 1854 – Müller's wolf snake
- Lycodon multifasciatus (Maki, 1931)
- Lycodon multizonatus (Zhao & Y.-M. Jiang, 1981) – Luding wolf snake, Luding Kukri snake
- Lycodon namdongensis Luu, Ziegler, Ha, Le & Hoang, 2019[7]
- Lycodon nympha (Daudin, 1803) – Vellore bridal snake
- Lycodon obvelatus K. Wang, Yu, G. Vogel & Che, 2020 – recluse wolf snake
- Lycodon ophiophagus G. Vogel et al., 2009 – snake-eater wolf snake
- Lycodon orientalis (Hilgendorf, 1880) – Oriental odd-tooth snake
- Lycodon paucifasciatus Rendahl in M.A. Smith, 1943 – Rendahl's wolf snake
- Lycodon philippinus Griffin, 1909 – Philippine dryocalamus
- Lycodon pictus Janssen, Pham, Ngo, Le, T.Q. Nguyen & Ziegler, 2019
- Lycodon poyarkovii Nguyen & Vogel, 2025 - Poyarkov's big-tooth snake
- Lycodon rosozonatus (Hu & Zhao, 1972) – rose big-tooth snake
- Lycodon rufozonatus Cantor, 1842 – red-banded snake
- Lycodon ruhstrati (Fischer, 1886) – mountain wolf snake, Formosa wolf snake
- Lycodon sealei Leviton, 1955 – Seale's banded Asian wolf snake
- Lycodon semicarinatus (Cope, 1860) – Loo-Choo big-tooth snake, Ryukyu odd-tooth snake
- Lycodon septentrionalis (Günther, 1875) – white-banded wolf snake, northern large-toothed snake
- Lycodon serratus K. Wang, Yu, G. Vogel & Che, 2020 – serrate-banded wolf snake
- Lycodon sidiki Wostl, Hamidy, Kurniawan & E.N. Smith, 2017
- Lycodon solivagus Ota & Ross, 1994 – common wolf snake
- Lycodon stormi Boettger, 1892 – Sulawesi wolf snake
- Lycodon striatus (Shaw, 1802) – northern wolf snake, barred wolf snake
- Lycodon subannulatus (A.M.C. Duméril, Bibron & A.H.A. Duméril, 1854) – Malayan bridal snake, southern bridle snake
- Lycodon subcinctus F. Boie, 1827 – Malayan banded wolf snake
- Lycodon synaptor G. Vogel & David, 2010 – Boehme's wolf snake
- Lycodon tessellatus Jan, 1863 – Manila wolf snake
- Lycodon tiwarii Biswas & Sanyal, 1965 – Andaman wolf snake
- Lycodon travancoricus (Beddome, 1870) – Travancore wolf snake
- Lycodon tristrigatus Günther, 1858
- Lycodon truongi A.T. Nguyen, Duong, Wood & Grismer, 2022 – Truong's wolf snake
- Lycodon zawi Slowinski et al., 2001[8] – Zaw's wolf snake
- Lycodon zayuensis K. Jiang, Wang, Jin & Che, 2020
- Lycodon zoosvictoriae Neang et al., 2014 – Zoos Victoria's wolf snake
Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Lycodon.
In 2024, another species of Lycodon was discovered: Lycodon neomaculatus T.V. Nguyen et al., the Indochinese banded wolfsnake.
