''Aspidites'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial n ...

of pythons

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

to Australia. The name can be translated as "shield bearer" and pertains to the symmetrically shaped head scales. Currently, two

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

are recognized.

Description

These snakes lack the heat-sensitive pits between the

labial scales The labial scales are the scales of snakes and other scaled reptiles that border the mouth opening. These do not include the median scales on the upper and lower jawsWright AH, Wright AA. 1957. Handbook of Snakes. Comstock Publishing Associates (7 ...

that most other python species have. The head is slightly wider than the neck, and the eyes are small, with a vertically elliptic pupils.

Distribution and habitat

They are found in Australia except in the south of the country.

Behavior

Both species are

nocturnal Nocturnality is an ethology, animal behavior characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatures generally have ...

,Mehrtens JM. 1987. ''Living Snakes of the World in Color''. New York: Sterling Publishers. 480 pp. . and

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

. Goin CJ, Goin OB, Zug GR. 1978. ''Introduction to Herpetology, Third Edition''. W.H. Freeman. San Francisco. xi + 378 pp. . (''Aspidites'', p. 319.)

Reproduction

Oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that lay their eggs, with little or no other embryonic development within the mother. This is the reproductive method of most fish, amphibians, most reptiles, and all pterosaurs, dinosaurs (including birds), a ...

, the females stay with their eggs until they hatch.

Species

^T)

Type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen( ...

Taxonomy

Two new subspecies, ''A. ramsayi panoptes'', the western woma python, and ''A. r. richardjonesii'', the desert woma python, were described by Hoser (2001). However, these descriptions are questionable, as they do not include proper diagnoses and seem to be based only on distribution. Wüster W, Bush B, Keogh JS, O'Shea M, Shine R. 2001. Taxonomic contributions in the "amateur" literature: comments on recent descriptions of new genera and species by Raymond Hoser. Litteratura Serpentium 21: 67-91
PDF
a
Wolfgang Wüster
. Accessed 10 September 2007.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q1568114 Pythonidae Snake genera Taxa named by Wilhelm Peters Snakes of Australia