A New Miocene-Divergent Lineage of Old World Racer Snake from India |
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| Authors: | Zeeshan A. Mirza Raju Vyas Harshil Patel Jaydeep Maheta Rajesh V. Sanap |
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| Affiliation: | 1National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore 560065, India;2505, Krishnadeep Towers, Mission Road, Fatehgunj, Vadodra 390002, Gujarat, India;3Department of Biosciences, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Surat-395007, Gujarat, India;4Shree cultural foundation, Ahmedabad 380004, Gujarat, India;State Natural History Museum, GERMANY |
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| Abstract: | A distinctive early Miocene-divergent lineage of Old world racer snakes is described as a new genus and species based on three specimens collected from the western Indian state of Gujarat. Wallaceophis gen. et. gujaratenesis sp. nov. is a members of a clade of old world racers. The monotypic genus represents a distinct lineage among old world racers is recovered as a sister taxa to Lytorhynchus based on ~3047bp of combined nuclear (cmos) and mitochondrial molecular data (cytb, ND4, 12s, 16s). The snake is distinct morphologically in having a unique dorsal scale reduction formula not reported from any known colubrid snake genus. Uncorrected pairwise sequence divergence for nuclear gene cmos between Wallaceophis gen. et. gujaratenesis sp. nov. other members of the clade containing old world racers and whip snake is 21–36%. |
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