Additions to the phylogeny of colubrine snakes in Southwestern Asia, with description of a new genus and species (Serpentes: Colubridae: Colubrinae)

Mahdi Rajabizadeh; R Alexander Pyron; Roman Nazarov; Nikolay A Poyarkov; Dominique Adriaens; Anthony Herrel

doi:10.7717/peerj.9016

Additions to the phylogeny of colubrine snakes in Southwestern Asia, with description of a new genus and species (Serpentes: Colubridae: Colubrinae)

PeerJ. 2020 Apr 21:8:e9016. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9016. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Mahdi Rajabizadeh^{1

2}, R Alexander Pyron³, Roman Nazarov⁴, Nikolay A Poyarkov⁵, Dominique Adriaens⁶, Anthony Herrel^{2

6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Biodiversity, Institute of Science and High Technology and Environmental Sciences, Graduate University of Advanced Technology, Kerman, Iran.
² Département 'Adaptations du vivant', Museum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France.
³ Department of Biological Sciences, the George Washington University, Washington, D.C., United States of America.
⁴ Zoological Museum, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
⁵ Department of Vertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
⁶ Department of Biology, Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
⁷ Department of Biology, Functional Morphology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.

Abstract

Reptiles are still being described worldwide at a pace of hundreds of species a year. While many discoveries are from remote tropical areas, biodiverse arid regions still harbor many novel taxa. Here, we present an updated phylogeny of colubrid snakes from the Western Palearctic by analyzing a supermatrix of all available global snake species with molecular data and report on the discovery of a new genus and species of colubrine snake from southeastern Iran. The new taxon, named Persiophis fahimii Gen. et sp. nov., is nested within a clade containing Middle Eastern and South Asian ground racers (Lytorhynchus, Rhynchocalamus, Wallaceophis, and Wallophis). This species has a derived morphology including an edentulous pterygoid and occurrence of short and blunt teeth on the palatine, maxillae and dentary bones, an elongated snout and a relatively trihedral first supralabial scale that is slightly bigger than the second, and elongated toward the tip of rostral. We also report on the osteology and phylogenetic placement of several poorly studied colubrines: Hierophis andreanus (reassigned to Dolichophis) and Muhtarophis barani.

Keywords: Coluber; Dolichophis; Hierophis; Iran; Muhtarophis; Persiophis; Phylogeny; Squamata; Supermatrix.

Grants and funding

Specimen storage and examination was completed with a postdoc fellowship from the French Embassy in Tehran to Mahdi Rajabizadeh, financial support from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF grant No. 19-14-00050, sample collection, data analysis) to Nikolay A. Poyarkov, and by US NSF grant DEB-1441719 to R. Alexander Pyron. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.