Check List 11(1): e19121, doi: 10.15560/11.1.1523
First record of Chrysopelea taprobanica Smith, 1943 (Squamata: Colubridae) from India
expand article infoBubesh Guptha‡, Nimmakayala Venkata Sivaram Prasad‡, Simon T. Maddock§, V. Deepak|
‡ Bio-Lab of Seshachalam Hills, Wildlife Management Circle, India§ The Natural History Museum, United Kingdom| Center for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, India

Corresponding author: V. Deepak ( deepaksalea@gmail.co )

© 2017 Bubesh Guptha, Nimmakayala Prasad, Simon Maddock, V. Deepak.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Deepak V, Guptha B, Maddock S, Prasad N (2015) First record of Chrysopelea taprobanica Smith, 1943 (Squamata: Colubridae) from India. Check List 11(1): 1523. https://doi.org/10.15560/11.1.1523
Open Access
Abstract
Chrysopelea taprobanica Smith, 1943 was previously considered to be endemic to the dry and intermediate zones of Sri Lanka. However, an adult specimen of C. taprobanica was collected from Seshachalam Biosphere Reserve of Andhra Pradesh, India, being the first record of this snake species from India, significantly extending the known range of distribution of the species. The dry zones of peninsular India were connected with Sri Lanka as recently as ca. 17,000 years ago, which probably allowed movement of species between these two regions.
Keywords
Andhra Pradesh; Chrysopelea; India; new record