Roller snakes
| Roller snakes | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Red cylinder snake ( Cylindrophis ruffus ) with a hidden head and a tail raised for distraction. |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
| Cylindrophiidae | ||||||||||||
| Fitzinger , 1843 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Cylindrophis | ||||||||||||
| Wagler , 1828 |
Roller snakes ( Cylindrophis ) are less than a meter long underground burrowing animals that are found in Sri Lanka , the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia . They can dig themselves meters deep into the rice fields of Southeast Asia.
Roller snakes have shiny skin, a small, flat and blunt head, and a short tail. The ventral side is checked in black and white. Her eyes are tiny but not covered with scales.
Way of life
Because of their hidden way of life, their behavior is largely unknown. Some species will eat other burrowing snakes. Threatened, they hide their heads under the coiled body, raise their twisting, flattened tails and reveal its strikingly colored underside. Roller snakes are viviparous and have up to 15 young in one litter.
Systematics
The roller snakes were previously assigned as a subfamily of the shield tails (Uropeltidae). In 2008 the family of Vidal & Hedges was placed in the superfamily Uropeltoidea together with the tails and burrowing snakes (Anomochilidae) after a phylogenetic study based on molecular biological principles .
species
The genus contains several undescribed and subsequently described species.
- Aru roller snake ( Cylindrophis aruensis Boulenger , 1920 )
- Cylindrophis boulengeri Roux , 1911
- Cylindrophis burmanus Smith , 1943
- Cylindrophis engkariensis Stuebing , 1994
- Cylindrophis isolepis Boulenger , 1896
- Cylindrophis jodiae Amarasinghe , Ineich , Campbell & Hallermann , 2015
- Cylindrophis lineatus Blanford , 1881
- Ceylon roller snake ( Cylindrophis maculatus ( Linnaeus , 1758) )
- Cylindrophis melanotus Wagler , 1830
- Cylindrophis opisthorhodus Boulenger , 1897
- Boano roller snake ( Cylindrophis osheai ) Kiekbusch , Max , Mader , Kaiser , Hinrich & Mecke , 2018
- Red roller snake ( Cylindrophis ruffus ( Laurenti , 1768) )
- Cylindrophis subocularis Kiekbusch , Mecke , Hartmann , Ehrmantraut , O'Shea & Kaiser , 2016
- Cylindrophis yamdena Smith & Sidik , 1998
literature
- Chris Mattison: Encyclopedia of Snakes . BLV Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8354-0360-4
- Vidal, N. & Hedges, SB (2008): The molecular evolutionary tree of lizards, snakes, and amphisbaenians. Comptes Rendus Biologies, doi : 10.1016 / j.crvi.2008.07.010
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ AA Thasun Amarasinghe, Patrick D. Campbell, Jacob Haller man Irvan Sidik, Jatna Supriatna, Ivan Ineich: Two new species of the genus Cylindrophis Wagler, 1828 (Squamata: Cylindrophiidae) from South East Asia . Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 9 (1) [General Section]: 34–51 (e98), 2015 ( PDF; 916 kB ).