Sahyadriophis

Sahyadriophis is a genus of snakes in the family Colubridae. The genus is endemic to the Western Ghats of India.^[1]

Sahyadriophis
Nilgiri keelback (Sahyadriophis beddomei)
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Family:	Colubridae
Subfamily:	Natricinae
Genus:	Sahyadriophis Patel, Thackeray, Campbell & Mirza, 2023
Type species
Sahyadriophis uttaraghati Patel, Thackeray, Campbell & Mirza, 2023
Species
See text

Taxonomy

The genus Sahyadriophis was erected in 2023 with Sahyadriophis uttaraghati as the type species. The Nilgiri keelback, formerly placed in the genus Hebius, was also moved into this genus. Molecular data has recovered Sahyadriophis as the sister taxon to the clade containing Xenochrophis, Fowlea and Atretium, diverging from said clade during the late Oligocene or early Miocene, albeit with poor support.^[1][2]

Species

Two species are currently placed in this genus:

• Sahyadriophis beddomei (Günther, 1864) – Nilgiri keelback
• Sahyadriophis uttaraghati (Patel, Thackeray, Campbell & Mirza, 2023)

References

1. Patel, Harshil; Thackeray, Tejas; Campbell, Patrick D.; Mirza, Zeeshan A. (August 2023). "Systematic Assessment of Hebius beddomei (Günther, 1864) (Serpentes: Colubridae: Natricinae) with Description of a New Genus and a New Allied Species from the Western Ghats, India". Taxonomy. 3 (3): 415–434. doi:10.3390/taxonomy3030024. ISSN 2673-6500.
2. Deepak, V; Cooper, Natalie; Poyarkov, Nikolay A; Kraus, Fred; Burin, Gustavo; Das, Abhijit; Narayanan, Surya; Streicher, Jeffrey W; Smith, Sarah-Jane; Gower, David J (2021-11-30). "Multilocus phylogeny, natural history traits and classification of natricine snakes (Serpentes: Natricinae)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 195 (1): 279–298. doi:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlab099. ISSN 0024-4082.