128 
P. A. RAWLINSON 
dark smoky grey, little differentiated from dor¬ 
sal colour. Chin shields and infralabials cream 
mottled with medium grey. Rostral, nasals, pre- 
frontals, preocular, lower anterior temporal and 
supralabial dark brown with a white anterior 
margin. Most supralabials have the pale colour 
extending posteroventrally, forming pale tri¬ 
angles. Snout-vent length 450 mm. Tail 
104 mm. 
Austrelaps ramsayi (Krefft, 1864) 
Hoplocephalus ramsayi Krefft 1864: 180. 
Hoplocephaliis bransbyi Macleay 1878: 52. 
Denisonia superba .—Boulenger 1896: 353 (in 
part). 
Austrelaps superbus .—Cogger et al. 1983: 218 (in 
part). 
Austrelaps ramsayi .—Sutherland 1983: 50-52. 
Remarks. Searches by the author and others for 
the holotype of H. ramsayi , a small, “apparently 
young” specimen from the “neighbourhood of 
Braidwood”, New South Wales (Krefft 1864) 
have been unsuccessful and the specimen is pre¬ 
sumed to be lost. Krefft’s description is of a 
snake that in scalation and colour, especially the 
combination of a dark vertebral line, 15 mid¬ 
body scale rows and “upper labials and chin- 
shields whitish, marked with olive-brown in the 
upper corners”, could only be a juvenile copper¬ 
head. The only respect in which the description 
fails to apply to a copperhead is the divided 
(“bifid”) anal scale; this is considered to be 
either an aberration or an erroneous obser¬ 
vation. Only one copperhead taxon, the high¬ 
lands form, occurs in the Braidwood area and 
thus, in the absence of an earlier available name, 
the combination Austrelaps ramsayi (Krefft, 
1864) is the correct name for this taxon. 
The holotype of Hoplocephalus bransbyi 
Macleay, 1878 (AM R31922; ex Macleay 
Museum MR1362, R541), from Moss Vale, 
New South Wales (34° 33' S, 150° 23' E), has 
been examined and is also a typical highlands 
form specimen. In order to stabilise the name for 
the highlands form, the holotype of H. bransbyi 
is here designated as neotype of H. ramsayi. 
Thus, H. bransbyi becomes a junior objective 
synonym of H. ramsayi. 
The neotype has the following taxonomically 
significant features: Midbody scale rows 15. 
Ventrals 151. Anal entire. Subcaudals 46, single. 
Lower anterior temporal inserted between fifth 
and sixth supralabials; not in contact with lower 
of two postoculars. Supralabials 6/6. Colour 
faded. Light brown dorsally. Narrow dark band 
on neck, bordered posteriorly by a light band. 
Some dark “lines” along neck. Ventral surfaces 
light brown; anterior half of each ventral and 
subcaudal scale dark brown. Supralabials and 
lower anterior temporal dark brown with a 
sharply demarcated, triangular whitish antero- 
ventral corner. Snout-vent length 340 mm. Tail 
72 mm. 
Notechis Boulenger, 1896 
Type species. Naja (Hamadryas) scutata Peters 
1861. 
Remarks. Notechis is closely related to Austre¬ 
laps and these genera were synonymised by Storr 
(1982). For several reasons, Storr’s expanded 
concept of Notechis is unsatisfactory' (Hutchin¬ 
son 1990) and traditional usage, with Notechis 
restricted to the scutatus-ater complex and/tes- 
trelaps recognised as a distinct genus, is main¬ 
tained here. 
Schwaner (1985a, 1985b), based on work in 
preparation, believes that all tiger snake popu¬ 
lations belong to the single species Notechis scu- 
tatus . Pending Schwaner’s analysis, and to facili¬ 
tate discussion, the view adopted here is that two 
species can be recognised, N. scutatus and the 
black tiger snake, Notechis ater (Krefft, 1866). A r . 
ater is darker in colour than N. scutatus and has 
scale counts ranging lower. Further comparative 
work including biochemical analysis over the 
whole geographic range of Notechis is necessary 
to establish whether sufficient genetic diver¬ 
gence has occurred in the various disjunct popu¬ 
lations to warrant the recognition of any of the 
subspecies listed in this paper. Also, the specific 
ranking of N. ater must be checked as Mitchell 
(pers. comm.) and Schwaner (pers. comm.) both 
report intermediacy of tiger snakes from the 
mouth of the Murray River and from Kangaroo 
Island, suggesting either local hybridisation or 
clinal intergradation. 
Notechis is restricted to temperate Australia, 
the distribution shown in Fig. 2 being based on 
locality data from specimens in the Museum of 
Victoria and on selected references. In the 
authors view, the present disjunct populations 
of Notechis originated from two parent popula¬ 
tions. Since the last glacial period, the rise in sea 
level and the southern climatic shift has frag¬ 
mented the southern and western population (N. 
ater) and allowed the northeastern population 
(N. scutatus) to migrate southwards and expand 
into southeastern Australia. Distributions for A'. 
scutatus provided by Worrell (1963c) and Cog¬ 
ger (1986: 446) showed the species extending 
