Discovery of a Remarkable New Boa from the Conception Island Bank, Bahamas

Boas of the World (Superfamily Booidae): A Checklist With Systematic, Taxonomic, and Conservation Assessments

“…Additional recent taxonomic changes within the Booidae include the resurrection of the genus Chilabothrus for some West Indian boids. Thirteen new species of booids have also recently been recognized, largely resulting from phylogenetic studies of molecular data (Passos and Fernandes, 2008;Wood et al, 2008;Reynolds et al, 2013aReynolds et al, , 2014Card et al, 2016;Reynolds et al, 2018) or newly discovered species (Reynolds et al, 2016a).…”

“…Booid taxonomy and systematics have experienced a considerable amount of flux over the last several decades, motivating a re-evaluation of the current state of taxonomy and diversity within the superfamily (sensu Pyron et al, 2014). This is especially relevant given the largely unknown conservation status of many of the world's booid snakes (Böhm et al, 2013;IUCN 2017) and the worrying prospects of some of those that have been evaluated (Tzika et al, 2008;Reynolds, 2011;Reynolds et al, 2016a;this work). Below, we provide generic and species accounts for all recognized species and subspecies of booids.…”

“…Phylogenetic analyses revealed that mainland Epicrates are phylogenetically sister to Eunectes (anacondas) and that West Indian representatives formed a monophyletic clade dating to the Miocene (Reynolds et al, 2013a). In addition to the recent elevation of the available name Chilabothrus for the West Indian clade, several taxonomic changes have occurred recently within the genus, including the elevation of three lineages to species (Reynolds et al, 2013aRodríguez-Robles et al, 2015), as well as the discovery of a previously unknown species (Reynolds et al, 2016a).…”

“…Chilabothrus argentum (Reynolds et al, 2016a) Taxonomy. (Schwartz et al, 1978;Franz and Buckner, 1998;Buckner et al, 2012).…”

“…Conservation Status. IUCN Red List Critically Endangered (Reynolds, 2017) based on extremely small extent of occurrence (EOO, a polygon containing all known populations) and area of occupancy (AOO, the actual area occupied within the EOO polygon), likely declining population size, and single known population (Reynolds et al, 2016a).…”