Abstract
Based on the first molecular phylogenetic analyses of samples from northeast India, specimens referred to Rhabdops from this region are more closely related to the southeast and east Asian natricine genera Opisthotropis Günther, 1872 and Sinonatrix Rossman Eberle, 1977 (as well as to New World and western Palearctic natricines) than to peninsular Indian (true) Rhabdops. Morphologically, these northeast Indian populations differ from other natricines by having a single ('fused' or unpaired) internasal shield and a single prefrontal shield. Given the morphological and phylogenetic distinctiveness of these northeast Indian populations, we refer them to a new genus, Smithophis gen. nov., and transfer Rhabdops bicolor (Blyth, 1854) to Smithophis bicolor comb. nov. Based on morphological and molecular variation within our northeast Indian sample, we additionally describe Smithophis atemporalis sp. nov. from the state of Mizoram.
Highlights
The colubrid snake genus Rhabdops Boulenger, 1893 is conceived currently as comprising three species—the type species, R. olivaceus (Beddome, 1863) and recently described R. aquaticus Giri, Deepak, Captain & Gower, 2017, both from the Western Ghats region of peninsular India, and R. bicolor (Blyth, 1854) from northeast India and adjacent regions of Myanmar and possibly China (Anderson 1879; Dowling & Jenner 1988; Smith 1943; Wallach et al 2014; Giri et al 2017)
The rest of the phylogenetic results reported here focus on analysis of the 55-species dataset that attempts to resolve the position of northeast Indian Rhabdops within Natricinae
We know that Rhabdops is a natricine comprising at least two species confined to the Western Ghats, and that the northeast Indian representatives comprise at least two species representing a distinct natricine genus (Smithophis) that is not the closest relative of Rhabdops, and that is endemic to northeast India
Summary
The colubrid snake genus Rhabdops Boulenger, 1893 is conceived currently as comprising three species—the type species, R. olivaceus (Beddome, 1863) and recently described R. aquaticus Giri, Deepak, Captain & Gower, 2017, both from the Western Ghats region of peninsular India, and R. bicolor (Blyth, 1854) from northeast India and adjacent regions of Myanmar and possibly China (Anderson 1879; Dowling & Jenner 1988; Smith 1943; Wallach et al 2014; Giri et al 2017). In addition to describing a new species, Giri et al (2017) recently carried out the first molecular phylogenetic analysis for Rhabdops and found support for a very close relationship between the two peninsular Indian species, and for their inclusion within the colubrid subfamily Natricinae. Giri et al.’s (2017) taxon sampling for their molecular phylogenetic analyses did not include the northeast Indian R. bicolor. We report additional molecular phylogenetic analyses of Rhabdops, including samples of multiple populations from northeast India. Given the morphological and phylogenetic distinctiveness of the northeast Indian populations we assign R. bicolor to a new genus. Based on morphological and molecular variation within our northeast Indian sample, we describe a new species from the state of Mizoram that we ascribe to the new genus
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