Elaphe taeniura Cope, 1861

Dau, Vinh Quang, Hoang, Thao Ngoc, Nguyen, Truong Quang & Pham, Anh Van, 2024, New records and an updated list of reptiles from Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, Biodiversity Data Journal 12, pp. e 134976-e 134976 : e134976-

Elaphe taeniura Cope, 1861

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: HDU 6056 ; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; occurrenceID: 053D4A76-8439-514A-9AD2-78CA776C6943; Taxon: scientificNameID: Elaphe taeniura ; scientificName: Elaphe taeniura ; class: Reptilia; order: Squamata; family: Colubridae ; genus: Elaphe ; specificEpithet: taeniura ; scientificNameAuthorship: Cope, 1861; Location: country: Vietnam; countryCode: VN; stateProvince: Thanh Hoa; county: Thanh Hoa; municipality: Ba Thuoc; locality: Near Thanh Son Commune ; verbatimElevation: 1006 m; verbatimLatitude: 20 ° 48335 ’ N; verbatimLongitude: 105 ° 09964 ' E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS 84; Event: eventDate: Ortober; eventTime: 2024; eventRemarks: collected by V. Q. Dau and T. N. Thao; Record Level: language: en; collectionCode: Reptilia; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

Morphological characters of the specimen from Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam, agreed with the descriptions of Smith (1943) and Schulz (2010): SVL 506 mm, TaL 127 mm (n = 1). Body cylindrical; head moderately distinct from neck; eye large, pupil round; rostral as broad as high, visible from above; internasals broad larger than long; prefrontal about two-thirds of frontal; parietals as long as wide; nasal divided; loreal 1 / 1; preoculars 2 / 2; postoculars 3 / 3, bordering anterior temporals; anterior temporals 1 / 1; posterior temporals 2 / 2; supralabials 9 / 9, fifth and sixth touching the eye, eighth-largest; infralabials 12 / 12, first to sixth bordering chin shields; dorsal scale rows 25–25 – 21, keeled from the eighth row, laterally smooth; ventrals 275; cloacal scale divided; subcaudals 112, paired.

Colouration in preservative. Dorsal surface of head and body brownish above, the head and neck uniform, with a black stripe on each side of the head, broadest behind the eye; anterior part of the back with a vertebral series of large black butterfly-shaped spots and smaller diamond-shaped ones on lateral; posterior part of back with a pale grey vertebral stripe, 3 or 4 scales wide and a broad black stripe on each side, 6 scales wide; this interrupted by light spots or transverse bars as far as the vent; ventral yellowish, with black spots in the outer margins. Tail black with four light stripes extending along each of the lateral, vertebral and ventral (Fig. 3 ).

Distribution

In Vietnam, this is a widespread species known, from Lao Cai and Cao Bang Provinces in the north, southwards to Kon Tum and Gia Lai Provinces ( Nguyen et al. 2009). This species is also known from India, Bhutan, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Myanmar, W Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Indonesia and Japan ( Uetz et al. 2024).

Type locality: China: Zhejiang, Ningbo; Ningpo and Siam; Siam, Ningpo ( Uetz et al. 2024).

Ecology

The subadult was found at 20: 00 h on the forest floor. The surrounding habitat was evegreen forest.

Figures

Figure 3. Elaphe taeniura (subadult, HDU 6056) from Thanh Hoa Province, Vietnam. Photo by A. V. Pham.