Authors
Teslin Chaney, Olivier SG Pauwels, Zoltán T Nagy, Václav Gvoždík, Chifundera Kusamba, Gabriel Badjedjea, Franck M Masudi, Jeannot B Akuboy, Raffael Ernst, Jean-François Trape, Laurent Chirio, Werner Conradie, Chad Keates, Van Wallach, Ange-Ghislain Zassi-Boulou, Eugene R Vaughan, Eli Greenbaum
Publication date
2024/12/1
Journal
Herpetological Monographs
Volume
38
Issue
1
Pages
1-52
Publisher
The Herpetologists' League, Inc.
Description
Grayia is a genus of relatively large (1.2–2.5 m) aquatic Afrotropical snakes. Recent molecular phylogenies recovered Grayia in its own distinct subfamily (Grayiinae), which was supported as the sister group to Colubrinae. Tropical African snakes are generally understudied, so the relationships within Grayia are poorly known. High degrees of intra- and interspecies variation can make identification difficult, and previous studies involving Grayia included misidentified specimens in other genera. The goal of this study is to create a phylogenetic tree that can be used to understand the relationships and taxonomy of Grayia via an integrative taxonomic approach that combines molecular data for 60 specimens and morphological data for 719 specimens. Two nuclear (BDNF, NT3) and four mitochondrial genes (COI, cyt b, 16S, and ND4) were used to construct phylogenetic trees with Maximum Likelihood …
Scholar articles
T Chaney, OSG Pauwels, ZT Nagy, V Gvoždík… - Herpetological Monographs, 2024