Mauritius worm snake
| Mauritius worm snake | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Madatyphlops cariei | ||||||||||||
| Hoffstetter , 1946 |
The Mauritius worm snake ( Madatyphlops cariei , Syn .: Typhlops cariei ) is an extinct species of snake from the family of blind snakes (Typhlopidae). It was endemic to Mauritius and is known only from a few fossil caudal vertebrae . The French paleontologist Robert Hoffstetter put it provisionally in the genus Typhlops in 1946 , although it was not certain whether it actually belongs to this genus. In 1844, André Marie Constant Duméril and Gabriel Bibron described the also extinct blind snake Cathethorinus melanocephalus . In 2010 it was suggested that both species could be related. A DNA analysis would not give satisfactory results, however, since the bone material of both species is preserved in alcohol. The Mauritius worm snake ( Madatyphlops cariei ) is named after Paul Carie (1876–1930), an amateur naturalist who carried out excavations in the Mare aux Songes site around 1900 on behalf of the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle , and the remains of this species discovered.
features
The Mauritius worm snake is known only from seven fossilized vertebrae from the central area of the tail. The material includes two rows of contiguous vertebrae and an isolated vertebral bone. With an estimated length of more than 200 mm, the species was significantly longer than the flower pot snake ( Ramphotyphlops braminus ), a blind snake that still occurs in Mauritius today. Furthermore, the Mauritius worm snake differed in various properties of the vortex morphology.
die out
In 1994 the Mauritius worm snake was added to the IUCN's Red List of Extinct Species. The species probably became extinct in the 17th century as a result of being stalked by introduced predators.
literature
- Anthony Cheke , Julian Pender Hume : Lost Land of the Dodo. An ecological History of Mauritius, Réunion & Rodrigues. T. & AD Poyser, London 2008, ISBN 978-0-7136-6544-4 .
- Robert Hoffstetter: Les Typhlopidae fossiles. In: Bulletin du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Series 2, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1946, ISSN 1148-8425 , pp. 309-315.
- Roy W. McDiarmid , Jonathan A. Campbell , T'Shaka A. Touré: Snake Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. Volume 1. The Herpetologists' League, Washington DC 1999, ISBN 1-893777-01-4 .
Web links
- Typhlops cariei in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2012. Posted by: World Conservation Monitoring Center, 1994. Accessed June 23, 2013.
- Madatyphlops cariei in The Reptile Database
Individual evidence
- ^ André MC Duméril, Gabriel Bibron: Erpétologie générale. Ou histoire naturelle complète des reptiles. Volume 6. Roret, Paris 1844, p. 270, digitized .
- ↑ Anthony S. Cheke: Is the enigmatic blind-snake Cathetorhinus melanocephalus (Serpentes: Typhlopidae) an extinct endemic species from Mauritius? In: Hamadryad. Vol. 35, No. 1, 2010, ISSN 0972-205X , pp. 101-104, digital version (PDF; 226.5 KB) .
- ↑ a b Robert Hoffstetter: Les Typhlopidae fossiles. In: Bulletin du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle. Série 2, Vol. 18, No. 3, 1946, pp. 309-315, here p. 313.
- ↑ Cheke, Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo. 2008, p. 314.