Alethinophidia Nopcsa, 1923, 1860

Szyndlar, Zbigniew & Georgalis, Georgios L., 2023, An illustrated atlas of the vertebral morphology of extant non-caenophidian snakes, with special emphasis on the cloacal and caudal portions of the column, Vertebrate Zoology 73, pp. 717-886 : 717

Alethinophidia Nopcsa, 1923

General information.

The “true” ( “ἀληθινά”) “snakes” ( “ὀφίδια”), as their name in Greek readily suggests, Alethinophidia was originally established by Nopcsa (1923) to distinguish them from scolecophidians and from a, now considered, paraphyletic assemblage of various Cretaceous and Paleogene forms (Cholophidia Nopcsa, 1923). The monophyly of this group has never been challenged. Vidal et al. (2007) suggested that Alethinophidia could be divided into two new major clades, Amerophidia (comprising aniliids and tropidophiids) and Afrophidia (comprising the remaining taxa, i.e., uropeltoids, booids, pythonoids, bolyeriids, xenophidiids, and caenophidians).