Summary
The Uropeltoidea, also known as uropeltoid snakes, are a superfamily of snakes that contains uropeltids (family Uropeltidae) and Asian pipesnakes (families Cylindrophiidae and Anomochilidae).
| Uropeltoidea | |
|---|---|
| |
| Uropeltis maculata (Uropeltidae) | |
| |
| Cylindrophis rufus (Cylindrophiidae) | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Suborder: | Serpentes |
| Infraorder: | Alethinophidia |
| Superfamily: | Uropeltoidea J.P. Müller, 1832 |
| Families | |
As of 2018, Uropeltoidea contains 71 species,[1] including the eponymous shield-tail snakes (genus Uropeltis with 23 species) and their relatives (32 species in 6 other genera),[2] 13 species of Asian pipesnakes (genus Cylindrophis), and 3 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]
References edit
- ^ "Uropeltoidea". The Reptile Database. Retrieved 24 April 2017.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.