Boiga cyanea ( Dumeril , Bibron & Dumeril , 1854)

Pham, Anh Van, Ziegler, Thomas & Nguyen, Truong Quang, 2020, New records and an updated checklist of snakes from Son La Province, Vietnam, Biodiversity Data Journal 8, pp. 52779-52779 : 52779

Boiga cyanea ( Dumeril, Bibron & Dumeril, 1854)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: TBU.2017. 01 ; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificNameID: Boigacyanea; scientificName: Boigacyanea; class: Reptilia; order: Squamata; family: Colubridae; genus: Boiga; specificEpithet: cyanea; scientificNameAuthorship: ( Duméril, Bibron & Duméril, 1854); Location: country: Vietnam; countryCode: VN; stateProvince: Son La; county: Song Ma; municipality: Pu Bau; locality: near Pa Lau Village ; verbatimElevation: 590 m; verbatimLatitude: 21°15'07''N; verbatimLongitude: 103°26'04''E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS84; Event: eventDate: 16 April 2017; eventRemarks: collected by N.B. Sung; Record Level: language: en; collectionCode: Reptilia; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

Morphological characters of the voucher specimen from Son La Province agreed well with the descriptions of Smith (1943), Tillack (2006) and Ziegler et al. (2010): SVL 1100 mm; TaL 380 mm (n = 1); head distinct from neck; eye large, pupil round; rostral broader than high; internasal not in contact with loreal; prefrontal longer than half of frontal; frontal pentagonal; parietals longer than wide; nasal divided; loreal 1/1, not in contact with orbit; preocular 1/1; postoculars 2/2, bordering anterior temporals; anterior temporals 2/2, posterior temporals 3/3; subpralabials 8/8, third to fifth touching the eye, seventh largest; infralabials 11/11, first to fifth bordering chin shields; dorsal scale rows 23-21-15, smooth; ventrals 242; cloacal scale undivided; subcaudals 128, paired.

Colouration in preservative: dorsal surface greenish-grey; belly whitish-grey (Fig. 2 ).

Distribution

In Vietnam, this species has been recorded from Lao Cai Province in the north, southwards to Ho Chi Minh City ( Nguyen et al. 2009, Ziegler et al. 2010). Elsewhere, this species is known from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia ( Nguyen et al. 2009, Ziegler et al. 2010).

Ecology

The voucher specimen was collected at 19:30 h on the ground. The surrounding habitat was secondary forest, composed of small hardwoods, lianes and shrub. Air temperature was 25-30oC and relative humidity was 70-75%.

Figures

Figure 2. Boiga cyanea (TBU 2017.01, adult female) from Son La Province, Vietnam. Photo: A. V. Pham.