Abstract
A new species of the genus Lycodon is described from Cao Bang Province, Vietnam, based on three individuals with distinct differences in morphology and molecular data. The new species is differentiated from its congeners by a combination of the following characters: dorsal scales in 17-17-15 rows, smooth throughout; supralabials usually eight (rarely nine); infralabials ten; one elongated loreal on each side, in contact with the eye; precloacal plate single; ventral scales 212–218 (plus one or two preventral scales); subcaudals 90 or 91; maxillary teeth 13 or 14; dorsal surface of body with 28 or 29 light body bands; dorsal surface of tail with 13 cream bands, forming a distinct blotch in the vertebral region. Based on phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial cytochrome b sequence data, the new species is recovered as the sister species to a clade containing L. multizonatus and L. liuchengchaoi with strong support from the Bayesian analysis. The new species is at least 7.5% divergent from other species within this clade in uncorrected pairwise distance calculated using a fragment of more than 1000 bp of the mitochondrial cytochrome b. This discovery increases the number of Lycodon species known from Vietnam to 16.
Highlights
The genus Lycodon Boie, 1827 is one of the most diverse genera of colubrid snakes, with 61 currently recognised species (Uetz et al 2019, Luu et al 2019)
From Vietnam, fifteen species of Lycodon have been reported to date, comprising L. capucinus (Boie, 1827), L. cardamomensis (Daltry & Wüster, 2002), L. davisonii (Blanford, 1878), L. fasciatus (Anderson, 1879), L. flavozonatus (Pope, 1928), L. futsingensis (Pope, 1928), L. laoensis Günther, 1864, L. meridionalis (Bourret, 1935), L. namdongensis Luu, Ziegler, Ha, Le & Hoang. 2019, L. paucifasciatus Rendahl in Smith, 1943, L. rosozonatus (Hu & Zhao, 1972), L. rufozonatus Cantor, 1842, L. ruhstrati abditus Vogel, David, Pauwels, Sumontha, Norval, Hendrix, Vu & Ziegler, 2009, L. septentrionalis (Günther, 1875), and L. subcinctus Boie, 1827 (Uetz et al 2019, Luu et al 2019)
Our recent field surveys in the Ha Lang and Trung Khanh districts, Cao Bang Province, northern Vietnam, revealed a snake population that was referable to the genus Lycodon based on the following characters: nostril enlarged; robustly arched upper maxillary bone with an inward curve in the anterior part; anterior and posterior maxillary teeth interrupted by a diastema; dorsal scales smooth or weakly keeled, in 17 rows anteriorly and at midbody, and posteriorly 15 rows (Lanza 1999; Grismer et al 2014)
Summary
The genus Lycodon Boie, 1827 is one of the most diverse genera of colubrid snakes, with 61 currently recognised species (Uetz et al 2019, Luu et al 2019). Recent phylogenetic studies showed that the genera Dinodon, Dryocalamus and Lepturophis nested within Lycodon and suggested to place them into the genus Lycodon sensu lato (Guo et al 2013; Siler et al 2013; Figueroa et al 2016). The members of this genus have a broad distribution from eastern Iran to southern China and Japan, southward to the Philippines as well as the Indo-Australian Archipelago (Lanza 1999; Siler et al 2013; Neang et al 2014). These morphological results were further corroborated by the analysis of a fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, and so we describe the population from Cao Bang Province, northern Vietnam, as a new Lycodon species
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