Shane:
I'm leaning toward the Oligodon name being an early mistake. This animal has been called Coluber, Coronella, Oligodon and Elaphe all in less than 100 years (discovered 1917). It has a lot of resemblance to mandarina and porphyracea (was thought a subspecies of porphyracea back in 1934). Of course since no DNA work has been done on it anything is possible but I'm betting it's in the ratsnake group (broadest sense). Of course now that Gonyosoma and Coelognathus have tentatively been branched closer to old world racers than ratsnakes I guess it wouldn't be too surprising if another "ratsnake" got shifted out but I think this one is a keeper. We'll have to wait for Schulz to hand over some tissue to Utiger et alia for testing.

I've only seen photos of Oligodon. What are they like? Do they equate with any familiar snakes that I can use as an analogy?

Regards
John

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