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Magnolia Press, Zootaxa, 1(4319), p. 143

DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4319.1.7

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Who is the red-bearded snake, anyway? Clarifying the taxonomic status of Chironius pyrrhopogon (Wied, 1824) (Serpentes: Colubridae)

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Distributing this paper is prohibited by the publisher

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Abstract

We provide morphological data supporting the allocation of Chironius pyrrhopogon (Wied, 1824) in the synonymy of C. exoletus, proposed earlier in the literature without proper justification. Besides the historical (literature) data, we also examined 155 Chironius specimens previously identified as C. exoletus, C. pyrrhopogon and C. quadricarinatus that could possibly fit the diagnosis and distribution of Wied’s specimens, and performed statistical tests to assess potentially informative variations in the sample. In addition, we concluded that the color features associated with C. pyrrhopogon are by no means diagnostic of a unique entity. Nonetheless, although apparently present at random in some Chironius species in the Atlantic Forest, we suggest that the reddish-brown spots are possibly linked to other phenomena involving co-evolutionary interactions with anuran potential preys.