Cylindrophiidae

Red rolling snake ( Cylindrophis ruffus ) collected with concealed head and tail deflection.

Pipesnakes ( Cylindrophis ) are less than one meter long underground grave animals that are found in Sri Lanka, the Malay Peninsula and Indonesia. In the rice fields of Southeast Asia they can dig meter deep.

Pipesnakes have a shiny skin, a small, flat, blunt head and a short tail. The belly is spotted black and white. Her eyes are tiny, but not covered by scales.

Way of life

Because of their secretive lifestyle behavior is largely unknown. Some species eat other snakes grave. Threatened, they hide their head under the convoluted body, align the writhing flattened tail into the air and show its bright colored underside. Rolling snakes are viviparous ( live-bearing ) and get up to 15 young in a litter.

System

The pipesnakes were assigned earlier than subfamily shield tails ( Uropeltidae ). In 2008, the family of Vidal & Hedges after an assisted molecular biology basics phylogenetic study together with the shield tails and the Wühlschlangen ( Anomochilidae ) was placed in the superfamily Uropeltoidea.

Species

The genus contains ten species.

  • Aru rolling snake ( Cylindrophis aruensis ) BOULENGER 1920
  • Cylindrophis boulengeri ROUX 1911
  • Cylindrophis engkariensis Stuebing 1994
  • Cylindrophis Isolepis BOULENGER 1896
  • Cylindrophis lineatus Blanford 1881
  • Ceylon rolling snake ( Cylindrophis maculatus ) Linnaeus 1758
  • Cylindrophis melanotus WAGLER 1830
  • Cylindrophis opisthorhodus BOULENGER 1897
  • Red rolling snake ( Cylindrophis ruffus ) LAURENTI 1768
  • Cylindrophis Yamdena SMITH & Sidik 1998
Squamata Leopold Fitzinger Johann Georg Wagler Digital Object Identifier
210907
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