Hi Chris and others,

I concur on the Carlia amax. I haven't looked at most of the others which seem to be sorted out already, but I've worked on Simoselaps in museum collections over many years: your banded snake on the Barkly Highway was S. roperi.

The S. semifasciatus group includes a few very distinct species: australis (east and south-east), semifasciatus (southwestern and central), approximans (north-west), as covered by the field guides. All the other, northern members of the group are more similar to each other in scalation and osteology, and distinct from those already listed, and I call this the S. roperi species-complex. It's a taxonomic mess, with low numbers of specimens (especially females) available from most areas.

What I think at the moment is: S. roperi (strict sense) is only recorded from the NT (in museum collections, which are spotty!)and has a relatively low number of broad dark bands (in the 30s and 40s, as in your photo). Similar forms occur in far north Queensland (available names are campbelli and woodjonesi). There are two separate unbanded species (incinctus and morrisi); and then a few specimens from various places in WA, NT and western Qld that have more numerous and fainter bands (60s to 80s) just like semifasciatus. Clearly this is the ancestral pattern, and the broad-banded and bandless populations are derived from it, but whether there are additional 'cryptic' species in the complex is not so clear.

These are harmless little things that eat nothing but lizard eggs and do not bite in defense. They have palatal teeth like a pair of saws, but the marginal teeth are tiny and the short fangs point backwards into the mouth (Scanlon and Shine 1988, J. Zool. Lond. 216: 519-528).

How precisely could you describe the locality and/or habitat for this specimen? I'm living just down the road from there, and may have to go and look for more like it! You can email me if there's more data (johnscanlon@outbackatisa.com.au). Cheers
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John D. Scanlon
Riversleigh Fossil Centre
Outback at Isa
Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia

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