Aipysurus
| Aipysurus | |
|---|---|
| |
| Aipysurus laevis | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Suborder: | Serpentes |
| Family: | Elapidae |
| Subfamily: | Hydrophiinae |
| Genus: | Aipysurus Lacépède, 1804[1] |
Aipysurus is a genus of snakes found in warm seas from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
The first description was published by Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1804, accommodating his description of a new species found in Australian seas, Aipysurus laevis, the type of the genus. The description was accompanied by an illustration of the new species.[1] The genus is allied to the elapid family, a diverse and widely distributed group of venomous predators also found on mainland Australia.
The following is a list of species,[2]
- Aipysurus
- Aipysurus apraefrontalis M.A. Smith, 1926; short-nosed sea snake
- Aipysurus duboisii Bavay, 1869; Dubois' seasnake
- Aipysurus eydouxii (Gray, 1849); spine-tailed sea snake
- Aipysurus foliosquama M.A. Smith, 1926; leaf-scaled sea snake
- Aipysurus fuscus (Tschudi, 1837); dusky sea snake
- Aipysurus laevis Lacépède, 1804; olive sea snake
- Aipysurus mosaicus Sanders et al., 2012[3]
- Aipysurus laevis Lacépède, 1804
- Aipysurus tenuis Lönnberg & Andersson, 1913
Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Aipysurus.
A subspecies nominated in 1974 as A. laevis pooleorum was elevated in 1983 to full species status, without explanation by the authors. The same revision (Wells and Wellington, 1983) also resurrected the species name Aipysurus jukesii (Gray, 1846), recognised as a synonym of Lacépède's Aipysurus laevis. [3]
References
- ^ a b Lacépède (1804). "Mémoire sur plusieurs animaux de la Nouvelle-Hollande dont la description n'a pas encore été publiée". Annales du Muséum d'histoire naturelle. 4: 184-211 [210, pl. 56].
- ^ "Aipysurus". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 20 September 2007.
- ^ a b Sanders, K.L.; et al. (2012). "Aipysurus mosaicus, a new species of egg-eating sea snake (Elapidae: Hydrophiinae), with a redescription of Aipysurus eydouxii (Gray, 1849)". Zootaxa. 3431 (1–18).
Further reading
- Boulenger, George Albert (1896). Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume III., Containing the Colubridæ (Opisthoglyphæ and Proteroglyphæ) ... London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiv + 727 pp. + Plates I-XXV. (Genus Aipysurus, p. 303).
- Goin, Coleman J.; Goin, Olive B.; Zug, George R. (1978). Introduction to Herpetology, Third Edition. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company. xi + 378 pp. ISBN 0-7167-0020-4. (Aipysurus, p. 332).
External links
- Aipysurus at the Reptarium.cz Reptile Database. Accessed 20 September 2007.