Lamprophiidae

Branch, William R., 2018, When roads appear jaguars decline: Increased access to an Amazonian wilderness area reduces potential for jaguar conservation, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 159) 12 (2), pp. 41-82 : 54

Family: Lamprophiidae

Early molecular studies helped clarify interfamilial relationships within advanced snakes ( Vidal and Hedges 2002 a; Kelly et al. 2003; Lawson et al. 2005; Vidal et al. 2007), and highlighted the existence of a major clade (Elapoidea, Vidal et al. 2007) that included elapids (cobras, mambas, sea snakes, etc.) and a large and diverse radiation of mostly African and Malagacy snakes. The latter radiation has been treated as the Lamprophiidae ( Vidal et al. 2009) . Pyron et al. (2011) noted that they considered “the most difficult aspect of higher-level colubroid taxonomy to be Lamprophiidae , the assemblage of mostly African snakes related to Elapidae .” The Lamprophiidae envisaged by Vidal et al. (2007) initially included only four subfamilies: the Psammophiinae , Atractaspidinae , Lamprophiinae, and Pseudoxyrhophiinae. Kelly et al. (2008) treated these as full families, and also proposed the additional families Prosymnidae and Pseudaspididae . Subsequent studies (e.g., Pyron et al. 2011; Figueroa et al. 2016) have basically retained these groupings as subfamilies (but with additional, sometimes non-African members of various subfamilies). The Pseudoxyrhophiinae include numerous Malagasy genera with a number of species also found in the Comoros Islands. Surprisingly, the African genera Duberria , Amplorhinus (and probably Montaspis ) are also included in this subfamily, but none occur in Angola.