A new species of the genus Hebius (Squamata, Natricidae), previously confused with H. boulengeri (Gressitt, 1937)

By

Liu, Shuo
Wang, Jishan
Hou, Mian
Zhang, Liang
Wang, Qiaoyan
Zong, Chunmiao
Zhou, Jiang
Rao, Dingqi
David, Patrick
Vogel, Gernot

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2025-10-3

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

1254

Pages

263--282

Subjects

keelback snake , Mitochondrial gene , morphological comparison , phylogenetic analysis , Pu’er City , taxonomy , Xishuangbanna Prefecture

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1254.161130

 

Abstract

A new species of the genus Hebius is described from Yunnan Province, China. The new species was previously identified as H. boulengeri, but it can be separated from H. boulengeri and other species of this genus by a combination of the following characters: 19-19-17 dorsal scale rows, 148–155 ventrals, 90–105 subcaudals, one preocular, three postoculars, 23–25 maxillary teeth, a distinct continuous white streak from posteroventral margin of eye extending backward and upward to nape to connect with dorsolateral stripe on each side, and white venter. The genetic divergence between the new species and H. boulengeri was 6.6% and the genetic divergences between the new species and other congeners ranged from 6.8% to 15.9% in the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene.