''Dendrelaphis oliveri'', commonly known as Oliver's bronzeback, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of nonvenomous

arboreal Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally (scansorial), but others are exclusively arboreal. The hab ...

snake in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Colubridae Colubridae (, commonly known as colubrids , from , 'snake') is a family of snakes. With 249 genera, it is the largest snake family. The earliest fossil species of the family date back to the Late Eocene epoch, with earlier origins suspected. C ...

. The species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

. It is considered to be the rarest of the Sri Lankan

Dendrelaphis ''Dendrelaphis'' is a genus of snakes in the subfamily Ahaetuliinae of the family Colubridae. Species of the genus ''Dendrelaphis'' are distributed from Pakistan, India and southern China to Indonesia, Timor-Leste, the Philippines, Australia, Ne ...

species on account of there being only a single recorded specimen.Danushka, A Dineth & Kanishka, A Suneth & Amarasinghe, A. A. Thasun & Vogel, Gernot & Seneviratne, Sampath. (2020). A NEW SPECIES OF Dendrelaphis BOULENGER, 1890 (REPTILIA: COLUBRIDAE) FROM THE WET ZONE OF SRI LANKA WITH A REDESCRIPTION OF Dendrelaphis bifrenalis (BOULENGER, 1890). 9. 83-102. 10.47605/tapro.v9i1.224.

Etymology

Both the

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

, ''oliveri'', and the common name, Oliver's bronzeback, are in honor of

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

herpetologist Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (in ...

James A. Oliver.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael(2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Dendrelaphis oliveri'', p. 194).

Description

Similar to other bronzebacks, ''D. oliveri'' has enlarged

dorsal scales In snakes, the dorsal scales are the longitudinal series of plates that encircle the body, but do not include the ventral scales. Campbell JA, Lamar WW (2004). ''The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere''. Ithaca and London: Comstock Publis ...

, large eyes relative to its head size, a clearly differentiated head from body, a long slender body with a long tail. It can be identified from its Sri Lankan cogeners by the combination of a lack of a

loreal scale The lore (adj. loreal) is the region between the eyes and nostrils of birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Ornithology In ornithology, the lore is the region between the eye and bill on the side of a bird's head. This region is sometimes featherless ...

, the prefrontals contacting the 2nd, 3rd and 4th

supralabials In reptiles, the supralabial scales, also called upper-labials, are those scales that border the mouth opening along the upper jaw. They do not include the median scaleWright AH, Wright AA. 1957. Handbook of Snakes. Comstock Publishing Associates ( ...

and the 4th, 5th and 6th supralabials contacting the eye. Furthermore, it has an eye stripe that begins post-nasal and continues past the eye through to the base of the tail. Below this black ventrolateral line is a white ventrolateral line beginning at the posterior supralabials and continuing to the tail. This white ventrolateral is bordered below by another black ventrolateral that begins at the neck and continues to the tail. The lack of a loreal scale is a character ''D. oliveri'' shares with '' D. effrenis'' in Sri Lanka. However, ''D. oliveri'' can be further identified from ''D. effrenis'' by its colour patterns and the following characters: prefrontals contacting the 2nd, 3rd and 4th supralabials (vs only 2nd and 3rd), the presence of a ventrolateral stripe (vs absent) and 2

postoculars In scaled reptiles, the ocular scales are those forming the margin of the eye.Wright AH, Wright AA. 1957. ''Handbook of Snakes''. Comstock Publishing Associates (7th printing, 1985). 1105 pp. . The name originates from the term which is Latin f ...

(vs 3). The lack of a loreal scale is a character that is occasionally seen within the ''Dendrelaphis'' genus as an anomaly, but in the case of ''D. oliveri'', this in combination with the presence of a black-white-black ventrolateral is unique to it, and with ''D. effrenis'', all recorded specimens showed a lack of a loreal scale. These observations show, that the lack of a loreal scale is a key identifier of these two species.Wickramasinghe, Mendis. (2016). A new canopy-dwelling species of Dendrelaphis (Serpentes: Colubridae) from Sinharaja, World Heritage Site, Sri Lanka. Zootaxa. 4162. 504. 10.11646/zootaxa.4162.3.5.

Distribution

Only one single specimen of ''D. oliveri'' has ever been recorded, and that is E. H. Taylor's original specimen from 1950. The specimen currently resides at the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History. The type-locality for ''D. oliveri'' is stated as north of

Trincomalee Trincomalee (; , ; , ), historically known as Gokanna and Gokarna, is the administrative headquarters of the Trincomalee District and major resort port city of Eastern Province, Sri Lanka, Eastern Province, Sri Lanka. Located on the east coast o ...

based on Taylor's original catalog notes. However, this cannot be verified as no other specimen has been ever found since in the area. Therefore, it is possible that ''D. oliveri'' is not from this area and for that matter not from even Sri Lanka.

Behavior

''D. oliveri'' is arboreal and diurnal.

Reproduction

''D. oliveri'' is

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that reproduce by depositing fertilized zygotes outside the body (i.e., by laying or spawning) in metabolically independent incubation organs known as eggs, which nurture the embryo into moving offsprings kno ...

Etymology

Description

Distribution

Behavior

Reproduction

References

Further reading