Amerophidia

The Amerophidia,^[1] also known as amerophidian snakes, are a clade of snakes that contains two families: Aniliidae (containing a single species, Anilius scytale, the American red pipe snake or false coral snake) and the boa-like Tropidophiidae (containing two genera, Trachyboa (with two species) and Tropidophis (with either 17 or 33, depending on the authority)).^[2]

Amerophidia Temporal range: 84.9–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Late Cretaceous to Present
An amerophidian snake, the American red pipe snake or false coral snake (Anilius scytale)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Infraorder:	Alethinophidia
Clade:	Amerophidia Vidal, Nicolas, Anne-Sophie Delmas, and S. Blair Hedges (2007)
Families
Aniliidae Tropidophiidae †Afrotortrix †Australophis

The sister-group relationship between these two families is surprising and unintuitive when only morphology is considered, because Aniliidae more closely resemble the Asian pipe snakes in the families Cylindrophiidae and Anomochilidae, whereas Tropidophiidae more closely resemble constricting, macrostomatan snakes such as Boidae and Pythonidae. However, every major phylogenetic analysis since 2007^[3][4][5][6] has found support for the idea that these two families are one another's closest relatives, despite having last shared a common ancestor about 91 MYA [CI: 77-104].^[7] The oldest fossil member of this family is the extinct Australophis from the Late Cretaceous of Argentina.^[8][9]

References

1. Vidal, Nicolas; Delmas, Anne-Sopie; Hedges, S. Blair (2007). "The higher-level relationships of alethinophidian snakes inferred from seven nuclear and mitochondrial genes". Biology of the boas and pythons (Henderson & Powell): 27–33.
2. Uetz, Peter. "Tropidophiidae at The Reptile Database". The Reptile Database. Retrieved 13 May 2018.
3. Figueroa, A.; McKelvy, A. D.; Grismer, L. L.; Bell, C. D.; Lailvaux, S. P. (2016). "A species-level phylogeny of extant snakes with description of a new colubrid subfamily and genus". PLOS ONE. 11 (9): e0161070. Bibcode:2016PLoSO..1161070F. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0161070. PMC 5014348. PMID 27603205.
4. Zheng, Y; Wiens, JJ (2016). "Combining phylogenomic and supermatrix approaches, and a time-calibrated phylogeny for squamate reptiles (lizards and snakes) based on 52 genes and 4162 species". Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution. 94 (Pt B): 537–547. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2015.10.009. PMID 26475614.
5. Gower, D. J.; Vidal, N.; Spinks, J. N.; McCarthy, C. J. (2005). "The phylogenetic position of Anomochilidae (Reptilia: Serpentes), first evidence from DNA sequences". Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research. 43 (4): 315–320. doi:10.1111/j.1439-0469.2005.00315.x.
6. Reynolds, R. G.; Niemiller, M. L.; Revell, L. J. (2014). "Toward a Tree-of-Life for the boas and pythons: Multilocus species-level phylogeny with unprecedented taxon sampling" (PDF). Molecular Phylogenetics & Evolution. 71: 201–213. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2013.11.011. PMID 24315866. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-12-02. Retrieved 2018-05-13.
7. 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. doi:10.1093/molbev/msv037. PMC 4379413. PMID 25739733.
8. Head, Jason J. (2015-04-14). "Fossil calibration dates for molecular phylogenetic analysis of snakes 1: Serpentes, Alethinophidia, Boidae, Pythonidae". Palaeontologia Electronica. 18 (1): 1–17. doi:10.26879/487. ISSN 1094-8074.
9. "Fossilworks: Australophis". fossilworks.org. Retrieved 2020-11-30.