Phylogenetic placement and diet of homalopsid snake <i>Miralia alternans</i> (Ruess, 1833)

A New Species of Water Snake Genus Hypsiscopus (Serpentes: Homalopsidae) From Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…Here, we added information from additional specimens and our findings show the consistency in the separation on the morphological characters among three species of Hypsiscopus which is concordant with published molecular data (i.e. Alfaro et al 2008;Bernstein et al, 2021;Fukuyama et al, 2022). The existence of this new taxon from Towuti Lake has been long recorded from several publications (i.e.…”

“…The new species is assigned to the genus Hypsiscopus based on possession of several morphological characters, small body size (SVL <700 mm), internasal(s) do not contact loreal, upper labials 2-3 or 2-4 usually contact with loreal, lower labials 1-5 usually contact the anterior chin shields, relatively short tails (10-17 % of SVL) (Murphy & Voris, 2014) and molecularly nested in the genus Hypsiscopus (Bernstein et al, 2021;Fukuyama et al, 2022). Hypsiscopus indonesiensis sp.…”

“…The H. murphyi is widely distributed in Indochina, H. plumbea occurs in from Indochina, southern part of Thailand, Malay Peninsula, Greater Sunda Islands to Sulawesi (Bernstein et al, 2022) and H. matannensis is restricted to South and Southeast Sulawesi (Iskandar, 1979;De Lang & Vogel, 2005), and according to recent information its distribution includes eastern and northern peninsular of Sulawesi (Bernstein et al, 2022). The molecular studies recognized these three species are nested in a monophyletic group together with the unnamed species from Towuti Lake (Sulawesi) (Alfaro et al, 2008;Bernstein et al, 2021;Fukuyama et al, 2022).…”

“…The family Homalopsidae (water snakes) have been generally recognized as a valid monophyletic group (Bernstein et al, 2021;Fukuyama et al, 2022) and consisted of 29 genera and 57 described species (Uetz et al, 2023). Formerly, most species of the homalopsid snakes belonged to the genus Enhydris Sonnini & Latreille, and further the genus was divided into 15 genera by Murphy and Voris (2014).…”

“…comm. ) and followed by several molecular studies that revealed the unnamed species in its phylogenetic position within genus Hypsiscopus (Bernstein et al, 2021;Fukuyama et al, 2022). We examined additional specimens of Hypsiscopus available, and based on the distinct several morphological characters, here we describe Hypsiscopus sp.…”