Lycodon serratus WANG, YU, VOGEL & CHE, 2020
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Lycodon serratus
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| Higher Taxa | Colubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Serrate-banded Wolf Snake Chinese: “锯纹白环蛇” (Pinyin: Ju Wen Bai Huan She) |
| Synonym | Lycodon serratus WANG, YU, VOGEL & CHE 2020 |
| Distribution | China (Yunnan: Deqin County, Derong County) Type locality: Jinsha River Valley near Geyading Village, Deqin County, northwest Yunnan Province, China (28.7720º N, 99.1128º E, WGS84, elevation 2200m). |
| Reproduction | |
| Types | Holotype: KIZ 038335, adult male, collected by Zhongbin Yu and Wenjie Dong on 25 July, 2020 |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: Lycodon serratus can be diagnosed from recognized congeners by a combination of the following morphological characters: (1) body size moderate, slender, ToL 628mm, SVL 480 mm; (2) tail long, TAL 23.6% ToL; (3) head flat, distinct from neck, snout narrow; (4) eye large, vertical ellipse in shape; (5) dorsal body scales smooth, 19 rows at one-head-length behind the neck, 17 rows at midbody, and 15 rows at one-head-length before vent; (6) ventral scale count 198; (7) subcaudal scale count 84; (8) cloacal plate divided; (9) supralabials 8 or 9, 2-3-3 or 2-4-3; (10) infralabials 10(5); (11) preocular single, postocilar 2; (12) loreal scale entering orbit; (13) enlarged paraparietal 2, bordered by 7 additional nuchal scales other than posterior upper temporal and parietal; (14) maxillary teeth 12 in four groups (6-1-1-4 or 6-1-2-3), sixth and seventh much larger, first and second gap about same size, twice as distance between first two teeth; (15) dorsal surface dirty Tawny Olive (Color 17) with narrow, strongly serrated Jet Black (Color 300) cross-bands, two-scale broad middorsally at anterior 1/7 of body, single-scale broad for the remaining ones; (16) single collar-band on neck, 66 cross-bands on dorsum, 26 on tail; (17) first dorsal cross-band at 10th ventral scale; (18) anterior 1/3 of ventral surface uniform white, remaining 2/3 of ventral body and whole tail speckled with Dark Neutral Gray (Color 299) (Wang et al. 2021). |
| Comment | Sympatry: Diploderma sp., Gekko jingjiangensis, and Scincella monticola (Yang & Rao, 2008; Wang et al., In press). Diet: the holotype of L. serratus sp. nov. was found at night searching for food on a bush, where several individuals of Diploderma sp. were sleeping on. As the genus Lycodon is known to feed predominantly on lizards (Zhao et al., 1998), it is likely that these sympatric lizard species constitute main preys of the new species (Wang et al. 2021) Similar species: Lycodon multizonatus Conservation: While the distribution range of the species remains unknown, habitat destructions from road constructions were observed at and near the type locality of the new species (Wang et al., In press). We recommend Data Deficient (DD) for the IUCN status of the new species, and we call for population studies to assess its conservation status in the near future. |
| Etymology | The Latin species name serratus means “serrated”, which describes the diagnostic narrow, serrated black cross-band of the new species. |
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