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Plectrurus
:''Common names: burrowing snakes''The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org. ''Plectrurus'' is a genus of nonvenomous shield tail snakes endemic to the Western Ghats of South India. Currently, four species are recognized. They inhabit high elevation montane ''Shola'' forests and are usually found under fallen logs and rocks. Some species are rare while some are quite common in their range. Description Small snakes, they do not exceed 43 cm (17 in). An ocular shield covers the eye. The eyes are small, diameter not more than half the length of the ocular shield. The tail is laterally compressed. The terminal scute also is laterally compressed, with two superposed points. The points are simple, bifid, or trifid. Boulenger, G.A. 1893. ''Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume I., Containing the Families...Uropeltidæ...'' Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). London. pp. 160-161. Species ''*) Not including the nominate s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plectrurus Perrotetii
''Plectrurus perrotetii'', commonly known as the Nilgiri burrowing snake or Perrotet's shieldtail,. www.reptile-database.org is a species of harmless snake in the family Uropeltidae. The species is endemic to India. Etymology The specific name, ''perrotetii'' or ''perroteti'', is in honour of French naturalist George Samuel Perrottet (1793–1867).Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Plectrurus perroteti'', p. 203). Geographic range ''P. perrotetii'' is found in the Western Ghats and hills of southern India. Description ''P. perrotetii'' is a small snake, growing to a maximum of in total length (including tail). The head is pointed, and the tail is blunt. It has smooth, glossy scales and is brown in colour. Biology Like the common worm snake, ''Ramphotyphlops braminus'', ''Plectrurus perrotetii'' is also often mistaken for earthworms, upon which it feeds ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plectrurus Guentheri
''Plectrurus guentheri'', commonly known as Günther's burrowing snake, is a species of snake in the family Uropeltidae. The species is endemic to the Western Ghats of India. Description The following description of ''P. guentheri'' is provided by Beddome (1864: 180): "Scales of the neck in 17 rows; anterior portion of the trunk in 13 rows, of the rest of the body in 15 rows; head-shields as in '' P. perroteti'', only the rostral is not produced so far back. All the scales of the tail 5-6-keeled, and some of the approximated scales of the body also keeled; terminal scale of the tail with four sharp points, and covered with small tubercles; abdominals 172, and a bifid anal; subcaudals 12. Total length , circumference . Colour of the body a bright reddish purple; belly yellow, the yellow colour rising up on the sides of the trunk into regular pyramid-shaped markings, and the purple colour descending in the same way down to the abdominals". Boulenger (1893) added the following de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plectrurus Aureus
''Plectrurus aureus'', commonly known as the Kerala burrowing snake or Kerala shieldtail, is a species of uropeltid snake endemic to India. Geographic range It is found in southwestern India in the Western Ghats. Type locality: "Chambra mountain in Wynad, near Kalpatty - one under an old rotten log at 6,000 feet elevation, the other under a large stone at 4,500 feet, both in heavy evergreen forest". Description Dorsum gold-colored, the scales edged with violet; a few irregular narrow violet-black crossbars may be present. Ventrum brighter gold-colored, with violet-black crossbands or alternating spots. Adults may attain a total length of . Ventrals 164–177; subcaudals 8–12. Scalation very similar to ''Plectrurus guentheri ''Plectrurus guentheri'', commonly known as Günther's burrowing snake, is a species of snake in the family Uropeltidae. The species is endemic to the Western Ghats of India. Description The following description of ''P. guentheri'' is provide . ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uropeltidae
The Uropeltidae, also known Common name, commonly as the shieldtails or the shield-tailed snakes, are a Family (biology), family of primitive, nonvenomous, burrowing snakes native to peninsular India and Sri Lanka. The name is derived from the Greek words ('tail') and ('shield'), indicating the presence of the large keratinous shield at the tip of the tail. Seven or eight genus, genera are recognized, depending on whether ''Teretrurus rhodogaster'' is treated in its own genus or as part of ''Brachyophidium''. The family comprises over 50 species. These snakes are not well known in terms of their diversity, biology, and natural history. Description Snakes in the family Uropeltidae are small snakes, with adults growing to a total length (including tail) of . They are adapted to a fossorial way of life, which is apparent in their anatomy. The skull is primitive and inflexible, with a short, vertical quadrate bone and rigid jaws; the coronoid bone is still present in the lower jaw. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snake Genera
List of reptile genera lists the vertebrate class of reptiles by living genus, spanning two subclasses. Subclass Anapsida Order Testudinata (turtles) Turtles are reptiles of the order Testudines characterized by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs and acting as a shield. Suborder Pleurodira * Superfamily Cheloides ** Family Chelidae *** Genus ''Acanthochelys'' *** Genus ''Chelodina'' *** Genus '' Chelus'' - mata mata *** Genus ''Elseya'' *** Genus '' Elusor'' - Mary River turtle *** Genus ''Emydura'' *** Genus '' Flaviemys'' - Manning River snapping turtle *** Genus ''Hydromedusa'' *** Genus ''Mesoclemmys'' *** Genus '' Myuchelys'' *** Genus ''Phrynops'' *** Genus ''Platemys'' - twist-necked turtle *** Genus ''Pseudemydura'' - western swamp turtle *** Genus '' Ranacephala'' - Hoge's side-necked turtle *** Genus ''Rheodytes'' *** Genus ''Rhinemys'' - red side-necked turtle * Superfamily Pelomedusoides ** Family Pelomedusidae *** Genus ''Pelomedusa'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family (taxonomy), family. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial species name for each species within the genus. :E.g. ''Panthera leo'' (lion) and ''Panthera onca'' (jaguar) are two species within the genus ''Panthera''. ''Panthera'' is a genus within the family Felidae. The composition of a genus is determined by taxonomy (biology), taxonomists. The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified, so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. There are some general practices used, however, including the idea that a newly defined genus should fulfill these three criteria to be descriptively useful: # monophyly – all descendants ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Albert Boulenger
George Albert Boulenger (19 October 1858 – 23 November 1937) was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botanist during the last 30 years of his life, especially in the study of roses. Life Boulenger was born in Brussels, Belgium, the only son of Gustave Boulenger, a Belgian public notary, and Juliette Piérart, from Valenciennes. He graduated in 1876 from the Free University of Brussels with a degree in natural sciences, and worked for a while at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Brussels, as an assistant naturalist studying amphibians, reptiles, and fishes. He also made frequent visits during this time to the ''Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle'' in Paris and the British Museum in London. In 1880, he was invited to work at the Natural History Museum, then a department of the British Museum, by Dr. Albert C. L. G. Günther a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endemism
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsewhere. For example, the Cape sugarbird is found exclusively in southwestern South Africa and is therefore said to be ''endemic'' to that particular part of the world. An endemic species can be also be referred to as an ''endemism'' or in scientific literature as an ''endemite''. For example '' Cytisus aeolicus'' is an endemite of the Italian flora. '' Adzharia renschi'' was once believed to be an endemite of the Caucasus, but it was later discovered to be a non-indigenous species from South America belonging to a different genus. The extreme opposite of an endemic species is one with a cosmopolitan distribution, having a global or widespread range. A rare alternative term for a species that is endemic is "precinctive", which applies to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Auguste Duméril
Auguste Henri André Duméril (30 November 1812 – 12 November 1870) was a French zoologist. His father, André Marie Constant Duméril (1774-1860), was also a zoologist. In 1869 he was elected as a member of the Académie des sciences. Duméril studied at the University of Paris, and in 1844 became an associate professor of comparative physiology at the university. From 1857, he was a professor of herpetology and ichthyology at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. In 1851, with his father, he published ''Catalogue méthodique de la collection des Reptiles''. With zoologist Marie Firmin Bocourt (1819–1904), he collaborated on a project called ''Mission scientifique au Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale'', a publication that was the result of Bocourt's scientific expedition to Mexico and Central America from 1864 to 1866. The section on reptiles is considered to be Dumeril's best written effort in the field of herpetology. Duméril died in 1870 during the sieg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. The most recent rigorous estimate for the total number of species of eukaryotes is between 8 and 8.7 million. However, only about 14% of these had been described by 2011. All species (except viruses) are given a two-part name, a "binomial". The first part of a binomial is the genus to which the species belongs. The second part is called the specific name or the specific epithet (in botanical nomenclature, also sometimes i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Edward Gray
John Edward Gray, FRS (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) was a British zoologist. He was the elder brother of zoologist George Robert Gray and son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray (1766–1828). The same is used for a zoological name. Gray was keeper of zoology at the British Museum in London from 1840 until Christmas 1874, before the natural history holdings were split off to the Natural History Museum. He published several catalogues of the museum collections that included comprehensive discussions of animal groups and descriptions of new species. He improved the zoological collections to make them amongst the best in the world. Biography Gray was born in Walsall, but his family soon moved to London, where Gray studied medicine. He assisted his father in writing ''The Natural Arrangement of British Plants'' (1821). After being blackballed by the Linnean Society of London, Gray shifted his interest from botany to zoology. He began his zoologica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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