The Pythonoidea, also known as pythonoid snakes, are a superfamily of
snake
Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...
s that contains pythons (family
Pythonidae
The Pythonidae, commonly known as pythons, are a Family (biology), family of Venomous snake, nonvenomous snakes found in Africa, Asia, and Australia. Among its members are some of the largest snakes in the world. Ten Genus, genera and 39 specie ...
) and other closely related python-like snakes (but not boas, which are in a separate superfamily called
Booidea). As of 2022, Pythonoidea contains 39 species, including the eponymous genus ''
Python'' and 10 other genera of pythons (''
Antaresia'', ''
Apodora'', ''
Aspidites'', ''
Bothrochilus'', ''
Leiopython'', ''
Liasis'', ''
Malayopython'', ''
Morelia'', ''
Nyctophilopthon'' and ''
Simalia''), all in the family Pythonidae, as well as two lesser-known families, Loxocemidae (one species, the Mexican burrowing python, in the genus ''
Loxocemus'') and Xenopeltidae (three species of sunbeam snakes in the genus ''
Xenopeltis'').
The taxonomy of pythons, boas, and other henophidian snakes has long been debated, and ultimately the decision whether to assign a particular clade to a particular
Linnaean rank (such as a
superfamily,
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
, or
subfamily
In biological classification, a subfamily (Latin: ', plural ') is an auxiliary (intermediate) taxonomic rank, next below family but more inclusive than genus. Standard nomenclature rules end botanical subfamily names with "-oideae", and zo ...
) is arbitrary. The clade name Pythonoidea emphasizes the relatively close evolutionary relationship among these 43 species, which last shared a common ancestor about 62
I: 46-78million years ago, in contrast to the more distant relationship between pythonoids and their next closest relatives,
uropeltoids (the most recent common ancestor between pythonoids and uropeltoids lived ~73
I:59-87million years ago).
References
Alethinophidia
{{Alethinophidia-stub