Rhinophis travancoricus | |
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Scientific classification ![]() | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Reptilia |
Order: | Squamata |
Suborder: | Serpentes |
Family: | Uropeltidae |
Genus: | Rhinophis |
Species: | R. travancoricus |
Binomial name | |
Rhinophis travancoricus Boulenger, 1892 | |
Rhinophis travancoricus, commonly known as the Travancore shieldtail or Tamil Nadu earth snake, [1] is a species of uropeltid snake endemic to India.
In biology, a species ( ) is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. Other ways of defining species include their karyotype, DNA sequence, morphology, behaviour or ecological niche. In addition, paleontologists use the concept of the chronospecies since fossil reproduction cannot be examined. While these definitions may seem adequate, when looked at more closely they represent problematic species concepts. For example, the boundaries between closely related species become unclear with hybridisation, in a species complex of hundreds of similar microspecies, and in a ring species. Also, among organisms that reproduce only asexually, the concept of a reproductive species breaks down, and each clone is potentially a microspecies.
The Uropeltidae, the shieldtail or shield-tailed snakes, are a family of primitive, nonvenomous, burrowing snakes endemic to peninsular India and Sri Lanka. The name is derived from the Greek words ura ("tail") and pelte ("shield"), indicating the presence of the large keratinous shield at the tip of the tail. Seven or eight genera are recognized, depending on whether Teretrurus rhodogaster is treated in its own genus or as part of Brachyophidium. The family comprises over 50 species. These snakes are not well known in terms of their diversity, biology, and natural history.
Snakes are elongated, legless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes. Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more joints than their lizard ancestors, enabling them to swallow prey much larger than their heads with their highly mobile jaws. To accommodate their narrow bodies, snakes' paired organs appear one in front of the other instead of side by side, and most have only one functional lung. Some species retain a pelvic girdle with a pair of vestigial claws on either side of the cloaca. Lizards have evolved elongate bodies without limbs or with greatly reduced limbs about twenty-five times independently via convergent evolution, leading to many lineages of legless lizards. Legless lizards resemble snakes, but several common groups of legless lizards have eyelids and external ears, which snakes lack, although this rule is not universal.
It is found in southern India (Travancore, Trivandrum, Peermade, Ernakulam).
India, also known as the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh largest country by area and with more than 1.3 billion people, it is the second most populous country as well as the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, while its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
The Kingdom of Travancore (Thiruvithamkoor) was an Indian kingdom from 1500 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram. At its zenith, the kingdom covered most of modern-day central and southern Kerala with the Thachudaya Kaimal's enclave of Irinjalakuda Koodalmanikkam temple in the neighbouring Kingdom of Cochin, as well as the district of Kanyakumari, now in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The official flag of the state was red with a dextrally-coiled silver conch shell at its center. In the early 19th century, the kingdom became a princely state of the British Empire. The Travancore Government took many progressive steps on the socio-economic front and during the reign of Maharajah Sri Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma, Travancore became the second most prosperous princely state in British India, with reputed achievements in education, political administration, public work and social reforms.
Peermade, also spelt Peerumedu is a hill station in the state of Kerala, India. It lies 915 metres (3,002 ft) above sea level in the Western Ghats (Sahyadri) some 85 kilometres (53 mi) east of Kottayam on the way to Thekkady through the nearby city of Kanjirappally.
Type locality: "near Trevandrum, at the 6th mile-stone towards Vambayam".
Dark purplish brown, scales on the sides and on the ventrum edged with whitish. Anal region black. Ventral surface of tail yellow.
The total length of the type specimen is 17 cm (6 3⁄4 in).
Dorsal scales in 17 rows at midbody (in 19 rows behind the head). Ventrals 146; subcaudals 6.
Snout acutely pointed. Rostral slightly laterally compressed, not keeled, about ⅓ the length of the shielded part of the head. Nasals separated by the rostral. Eye in the ocular shield. No supraoculars. Frontal longer than broad. No temporals. No mental groove. Diameter of body 34 times in the total length. Ventrals about 1½ times the size of the contiguous scales. Tail ending in a large convex rugose shield, which is neither truncated nor spinose at the end. Caudal disc slightly shorter than the shielded part of the head. [2]
George Albert Boulenger was a Belgian-British zoologist who described and gave scientific names to over 2,000 new animal species, chiefly fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Boulenger was also an active botanist during the last 30 years of his life, especially in the study of roses.
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