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A freind of mine and I were talking the other day and he heard from a very reputable source that some African Naja sp may be removed from the latter genus and placed into their own. Two of the sp brought up were Naja melanoluca and Naja nevia. Has anyone heard of this? Can anyone give info on the subject? From what I gathered it is still in the works but is there any reasoning for this other then DNA testing? I know that should be enough but Im curious if there is any kinda of skelatal differences which have helped lead to a conclusion. Being that melenoluca has such a narrow hood, I have often felt that they may fall into a league of their own and im curious to hear if this has anything to do with the posible split.

Also, if anyone knows, why is nevia being considered (im sure its also due too DNA test)? If anything I would have thought N.pallidia would be a canidate. I have always thought of nevia as being a text book cobra.

BTW, any new word on the proposed O.hannah split? I recall talk of spliting the genus into up to 7 different sp but I have yet to see anything published.

Well, I understand if this is still in the works and cant be commented on thanks to theifs like Mr Poser Hoser but if alittle info can be let out I would be most greatfull to hear it.

Thanks in advance and I hope this brings on better discusion then what has been seen on this forum as of late.

Regards,
Jeremy

G'day mate

Yep the African Naja does not exist as a natural group as on the DNA tree both Boulengerina and Pseudohaje (Paranaja as well?) land right smack in the middle, neatly splitting the lot into two. Therefore either Naja has to be expanded to include these other genera or split to develop two more genera. I don't have the papers in front of me but Naja melanoleuca is certainly distinct from the other Naja types as are one or two more of the cobras (can't remember off-hand if N. nivea is one of these).

WW certainly can expand on this once he'd done trapsing through the Flinders Ranges in South Australia (Yes Raymond, Wolfgang is in Australia).

As for Ophiophagus, its not exactly a state secret that there are multiple, and in some cases vastly unrelated, species in there. Its just taking sometime to sort it out properly. The vastness of the range and sheer number of local variations requires a slow careful study to sort out whats just a regional variant and whats a trues species. Doing it right is always worth the wait.

Cheers
B
Venomdoc Homepage

As far as N. nivea being a textbook cobra...as I recall, they have a narrower hood than, say haje, & I believe they have a considerably more toxic venom.

~~Greg~~

Now back home from the land of elapids...

Basically, Bryan summed it up nicely: several of the cobra-like genera from Africa (particularly Boulengerina and Paranaja - Pseudohaje has not been studied, or at least nothing has been published) are rooted among the various African Naja. The type species of the genus is the Asiatic Naja naja, so if some of the African species currently grouped as Naja turn out to be closer to other genera, then either all have to be lumped into Naja, or the genus split. Given current tendencies, I suspect the latter will be proposed.

However, the studies published so far relied on a single mtDNA gene, and only included a few species of Naja, so we will have to wait for a fuller tree. I believe this is being worked on.

As to Ophiophagus... ther eis both morphological and DNA work in progress, that's all I can say about them. This one has been a long time coming, but, as Bryan said, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing well.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
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WW

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