Uropeltoidea

Uropeltoidea
Uropeltis maculata (Uropeltidae)
Cylindrophis rufus (Cylindrophiidae)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Infraorder: Alethinophidia
Superfamily: Uropeltoidea
J.P. Müller, 1832
Families

The Uropeltoidea, also known as uropeltoid snakes, are a superfamily of snakes that contains uropeltids (family Uropeltidae) and Asian pipesnakes (families Cylindrophiidae and Anomochilidae).

As of 2018, Uropeltoidea contains 97 species,[1] including the eponymous shield-tail snakes (genus Uropeltis with 26 species) and their relatives (68 species in six other genera),[2] 14 species of Asian pipesnakes (genus Cylindrophis), and three species of dwarf pipesnakes (genus Anomochilus).[3]

The taxonomy of boas, pythons, and other henophidian snakes has long been debated, and ultimately the decision whether to assign a particular clade to a particular Linnaean rank (such as a superfamily, family, or subfamily) is arbitrary. The clade name Uropeltoidea emphasizes the relatively close evolutionary relationship among these 71 species, which last shared a common ancestor about 48 [CI:36–60] million years ago, in contrast to the more distant relationship between uropeltoids and their next closest relatives, pythonoids (the most recent common ancestor between uropeltoids and pythonoids lived ~73 [CI:59–87] million years ago).[4]

  1. ^ "Uropeltoidea". The Reptile Database. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
  2. ^ Pyron, R. A.; Ganesh, S. R.; Sayyed, A.; Sharma, V.; Wallach, V.; Somaweera, R. (2016). "A catalogue and systematic overview of the shield-tailed snakes (Serpentes: Uropeltidae)". Zoosystema. 38 (4): 453–506. doi:10.5252/z2016n4a2.
  3. ^ Reynolds, RG; Niemiller, ML; Revell, LJ (2014). "Toward a Tree-of-Life for the boas and pythons: multilocus species-level phylogeny with unprecedented taxon sampling" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 71: 201–213. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.11.011. PMID 24315866.
  4. ^ Hedges, SB; Marin, J; Suleski, M; Paymer, M; Kumar, S (2015). "Tree of Life Reveals Clock-Like Speciation and Diversification". Mol Biol Evol. 32 (4): 835–845. arXiv:1412.4312. doi:10.1093/molbev/msv037. PMC 4379413. PMID 25739733.