A new subfamily of fossorial colubroid snakes from the Western Ghats of peninsular India

ABSTRACT

We report molecular phylogenetic and dating analyses of snakes that include new mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequence data for three species of the peninsular Indian endemic Xylophis. The results provide the first molecular genetic test of and support for the monophyly of Xylophis. Our phylogenetic results support the findings of a previous, taxonomically restricted phylogenomic analysis of ultraconserved nuclear sequences in recovering the fossorial Xylophis as the sister taxon of a clade comprising all three recognised extant genera of the molluscivoran and typically arboreal pareids. The split between Xylophis and ‘pareids’ is estimated to have occurred on a similar timescale to that between most (sub)families of extant snakes. Based on phylogenetic relationships, depth of molecular genetic and estimated temporal divergence, and on the external morphological and ecological distinctiveness of the two lineages, we classify Xylophis in a newly erected subfamily (Xylophiinae subfam. nov.) within Pareidae.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:43BDE72C-6823-4D6A-8601-482862556D78

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:AD3486DF-D874-4CFD-8EAE-14FF3E403AF9

KEYWORDS:

• Asia
• classification
• Pareidae
• Pareinae
• phylogenetics
• Xylophis
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

In addition to people acknowledged by Gower and Winkler (2007), we thank Srihari Ananthakrishna and Krishna Chaitanya for their support during fieldwork. Chinta Sidharthan is thanked for help with some of the lab work, and Mark Wilkinson and Natalie Cooper for help with some of the analyses. VD thanks Achyuthan Srikanthan for sharing Xylophis perroteti photos. We also further thank those acknowledged in Ruane and Austin (2017), especially Jens Vindum (California Academy of Sciences) for the loan of Xylophis stenorhynchus and Jeff Streicher for sharing the dataset from Streicher and Wiens (2016). Part of this project was made possible from NSF DEB-1146033 to C.C. Austin. VD’s contribution was support, in part, by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship EU project 751567.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Geolocation Information

Study Area (box): 8.65000°N, 76.95000°E to 11.31198°N, 76.58653°E

Supplementary material

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed here

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship [EU project 751567].