''Gloydius'' is a
genus of
venomous pitvipers
The Crotalinae, commonly known as pit vipers,Mehrtens JM (1987). ''Living Snakes of the World in Color''. New York: Sterling Publishers. 480 pp. . crotaline snakes (from grc, κρόταλον ''krotalon'' castanet), or pit adders, are a subfa ...
endemic to
Asia, also known as Asian moccasins or Asian ground pit vipers. Named after
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
herpetologist Howard K. Gloyd Howard Kay Gloyd (February 12, 1902 – August 7, 1978) was an American herpetologist who is credited with describing several new species and subspecies of reptiles, such as the Florida cottonmouth, ''Agkistrodon piscivorus conanti''.
Also, he is h ...
,
[Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Gloydius'', p. 102).] this genus is very similar to the
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
n genus ''
Agkistrodon''. 24
species are currently recognized.
Geographic range
Species of ''Gloydius'' are found in
Russia, east of the
Ural Mountains through
Siberia,
Iran,
Himalayas from
Pakistan,
India,
Nepal,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
,
Korea,
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
and the
Ryukyu Islands.
Species
''*) Not including the nominate subspecies.''
T)
Type species.
Taxonomy
Due to the strong
morphological similarity, these snakes were classified in the genus ''Agkistrodon'' until very recently. However, by 1999
cladistic studies clearly showed that ''Agkistrodon'' did not form a
clade
A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term, ...
(indeed, it was not even
paraphyletic
In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
) and was thus split into several
genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nomenclat ...
.
A new species, ''G. tsushimaensis'', was described by Isogawa, Moriya & Mitsui (1994). It is referred to as the Tsushima island pitviper and is found only on Tsushima Island, Japan.
References
Further reading
*
Hoge AR,
Romano-Hoge SA (1981). "Poisonous Snakes of the World. I. Checklist of the Pitvipers: Viperoidea, Viperidae, Crotalinae". ''Memórias do Instituto Butantan'' 42/43: 179-309. (''Gloydius'', new genus).
*Isogawa, Kiyoshi; Moriya, Akira; Mitsui, Sadaaki (1994). "A new snake from the genus ''Agkistrodon'' (Serpentes: Viperidae) from Tsushima Island, Nagasaki Prefecture". ''Japanese J. Herpetol.'' 15: 101-111. (''Agkistrodon tsushimaensis'', new species).
External links
*
Taxonomy comparisonby Dr.
Wolfgang Wüster a
Dr. Brian Grieg Fry's Int'l Venom & Toxin Database Accessed 25 July 2007.
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2177129
Snakes of Asia
Snake genera