Coral roller snake

Coral roller snake
	Coral Rollsnake ( Anilius scytale )
Systematics
without rank:	Toxicofera
Subordination :	Snakes (serpentes)
	incertae sedis
Family :	Roller snakes
Genre :	Anilius
Type :	Coral roller snake
Scientific name of the family
	Aniliidae
	Stejneger , 1907
Scientific name of the genus
	Anilius
	Oken , 1816
Scientific name of the species
	Anilius scytale
	( Linnaeus , 1758)

“ Crocodile caiman and coral roller snake.” Colored copper engraving by Maria Sibylla Merian from Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium , plate LXX.

The coral roller snake ( Anilius scytale ) is the only species in the family of roller snakes (Aniliidae). It occurs in South America in Trinidad and in the Amazon region in two subspecies ( A. s. Scytale and A. s. Phelpsorum ). It colonizes tropical rainforests and cultivated land.

The position of the roller snakes within the snakes has not yet been finally clarified. They used to be placed in the former superfamily of the giant snake- like. However, this was split up on the basis of genetic studies, with the largest groups being the boas and pythons . Compared to these, the roller snakes are more closely related to the superfamily of the blind snake-like (Typhlopoidea), which was not counted among the giant snake-like.

features

Coral roller snakes are medium-sized snakes with a cylindrical body, short tail and a flattened head that is barely detached from the neck. The cranial bones are grown together or reinforced in adaptation to a burrowing way of life, teeth are located on the intermaxillary , upper jaw , palatine bone , wing bone and lower jaw . The basic color of the animals is bright red with a whitish belly, black scales tips and numerous, irregular black bands that extend completely over the back and stomach. It thus resembles the highly poisonous coral otter , but this is probably not a mimicry due to the assumed higher evolutionary age of the species . It reaches a length of 60 to 90 cm.

The nominate form has 248 belly shields and 12 tail shields . In the middle of the body, the back scales are arranged in 21 rows. All the scales are smooth.

The animals have dewspurs similar to those of other primitive snakes such as pythons and boas .

Way of life

Because of the burrowing way of life of the coral roller snakes, little is known about their behavior. Amphibians, lizards and small snakes caught on the surface, as well as possibly insects and fish serve as prey. The animals are ovoviviparous and give birth to 6 to 15 live young.

swell

Hans EA Boos: The Snakes of Trinidad and Tobago . Texas A&M University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-1-58544-116-7 .
Mark O'Shea: Boas and Pythons of the World . New Holland Publishers, 2007, ISBN 978-1-84537-544-7 .

Individual evidence

↑ Michael SY Lee, Andrew F. Hugall, Robin Lawson and John D. Scanlon: Phylogeny of snakes (Serpentes): combining morphological and molecular data in likelihood, Bayesian and parsimony analyzes . In: Systematics and Biodiversity . tape 5 , 2007, p. 371-389 , doi : 10.1017 / S1477200007002290 .

Web links

Commons : Coral Roller Snake - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Anilius scytale in The Reptile Database

[lee-1] Michael SY Lee, Andrew F. Hugall, Robin Lawson and John D. Scanlon: Phylogeny of snakes (Serpentes): combining morphological and molecular data in likelihood, Bayesian and parsimony analyzes . In: Systematics and Biodiversity . tape 5 , 2007, p. 371-389 , doi : 10.1017 / S1477200007002290 .