The Colubroides are a
clade in the suborder Serpentes (
snakes).
It contains over 85% of all the extant species of snakes.
The largest family is
Colubridae, but it also includes at least six other families,
at least four of which were once classified as "Colubridae" before
molecular phylogenetics
Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...
helped in understanding their relationships.
It has been found to be
monophyletic.
Morphological
synapomorphies are defined as such from Zaher et al. (2009):
Loss of the right carotid artery; intercostal arteries arising from the dorsal aorta throughout the trunk at intervals of several body segments; specialized expanded costal cartilages; presence of a muscle protractor laryngeus; separate muscle protractor quadrati; separate spinalis and semispinalis portion in the epaxial trunk; spinules or spines covering the hemipenial body.
Traditionally, the name "
Colubroidea
Colubroidea is a superfamily of snakes in the clade Colubroides that includes Colubridae, with some studies splitting Colubridae into multiple families that make up Colubroidea. Historically, Colubroidea also included other caenophidian snakes ...
" was used for this clade. This was seen problematic, however, as many of the same studies that support this clade of snakes also advocated for the various subfamilies of
Colubridae to be reevaluated as proper families in their own right.
As the result of this, Zaher et al. (2009) proposed to rename the clade as "Colubroides", restricting Colubroidea to the clade
Colubridae and several related families that were formerly colubrid subfamilies.
Below is a phylogeny of colubroid snakes found in many analyses:
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q65080051
Alethinophidia