Plectrurus guentheri

Plectrurus guentheri
Günther's burrowing snake
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Uropeltidae
Genus: Plectrurus
Species: P. guentheri
Binomial name
Plectrurus guentheri
Beddome, 1863

Plectrurus guentheri, commonly known as Günther's burrowing snake, is a species of uropeltid snake endemic to the Western Ghats of India.

Description

Description provided by Beddome (1864: 180): "Scales of the neck in 17 rows; anterior portion of the trunk in 13 rows, of the rest of the body in 15 rows; head-shields as in P. perroteti, only the rostral is not produced so far back. All the scales of the tail 5-6-keeled, and some of the approximated scales of the body also keeled; terminal scale of the tail with four sharp points, and covered with small tubercles; abdominals 172, and a bifid anal; subcaudals 12. Total length 13 inches [33 cm], circumference 1 2⁄8 inches [32 mm]. Colour of the body a bright reddish purple; belly yellow, the yellow colour rising up on the sides of the trunk into regular pyramid-shaped markings, and the purple colour descending in the same way down to the abdominals"

Boulenger (1893) added the following details: "Snout obtuse; rostral small, the portion visible from above shorter than its distance from the frontal; nasals in contact; frontal longer than broad. Eye half the length of the ocular. Diameter of body 36 to 42 times in the total length. Ventrals not twice as large as the contiguous scales. Terminal scute with two superposed bi- or tricuspid transverse ridges.[1]

Etymology

P. guentheri is named after Albert Günther (1830–1914), German-born zoologist at the British Museum.[2]

Geographic range

Found in the Western Ghats and associated hills of southern India.

Type locality: "Walaghat on the Western slopes of the Neilgherries" (Nilgiris).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Boulenger GA. 1893. Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume I., Containing the Families ... Uropeltidæ ... London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiii + 448 pp. + Plates I-XXVIII. (Plectrurus guentheri, p. 162).
  2. ↑ Beolens B, Watkins M, Grayson M. 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Plectrurus guentheri, pp. 110-111).

Further reading

  • Beddome RH. 1863. "Descriptions of New Species of the Family Uropeltidæ from Southern India, with Notes on other little-known Species". Proc. Zool. Soc. London 1863: 225-229 + Plates XXV, XXVI, XXVII.
  • Beddome RH. 1863. "Further Notes upon the Snakes of the Madras Presidency; with some Descriptions of New Species". Madras Quart. J. Med. Sci. 6: 41-48. [Reprint: 1940. J. Soc. Bibliogr. Nat. Sci., London 1 (10): 306-314.]
  • Beddome RH. 1864. "Descriptions of New Species of the family Uropeltidae from Southern India, with Notes on other little-known Species". Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Third Series 13: 177-180.
  • Beddome RH. 1886. "An Account of the Earth-Snakes of the Peninsula of India and Ceylon". Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., Fifth Series 17: 3-33.
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