Sonora aemula ( Cope 1879 )

Cox, Christian L., Davis Rabosky, Alison R., Holmes, Iris A., Reyes-Velasco, Jacobo, Roelke, Corey E., Smith, Eric N., Flores-Villela, Oscar, McGuire, Jimmy A. & Campbell, Jonathan A., 2018, Synopsis and taxonomic revision of three genera in the snake tribe Sonorini, Journal of Natural History 52 (13 - 16), pp. 945-988 : 980-982

Sonora aemula ( Cope 1879)

Procinura aemula Cope 1879: 262 Holotype: Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia (ANSP) 11614 ( Bogert and Oliver 1945). Type locality: ‘Batopilas, Chihuahua’ ( Cope 1879).

Contia aemula Garman 1884:92

Scolecophis aemulus Cope 1900:1109

Scolecophis aemulae Gadow 1905:225

Scolecophis aemulus do Amaral 1929:218

Sonora aemula Bogert and Oliver 1945:371

Procinura aenula Smith and Taylor 1945:326

Procinura aenula Maldonado-Koerdell 1953:124

Sonora aemula Zweifel and Norris 1955:244

Procinura aemula Lemos-Espinal et al. 2004a

Procinura aemula Smith et al. 2006 :820.1

Sonora aemula Cox et al. 2012:102

Diagnosis

This species can be distinguished from all other species of Sonora by the presence of distinctly raised tubercular scales or caudal spines creating a ‘file-like’ tail ( Bogert and Oliver 1945).

Variation

This species is extremely variable in colour pattern, ranging from a uniformly red to banded tricoloured pattern ( Bogert and Oliver 1945; Zweifel and Norris 1955; Nickerson and Heringhi 1966). In tricoloured animals, the number and arrangement of triads can vary greatly ( Bogert and Oliver 1945; Zweifel and Norris 1955; Nickerson and Heringhi 1966). A more detailed description of meristic characters and a hemipenial description are found in Bogert and Oliver (1945).

Distribution

This species is found on the Pacific versant of the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Sonora and Sinaloa ( Figure 7 ).

Remarks

This species is in the subgenus Procinura along with Sonora mosaueri . It is worth noting that while the name Procinura has historically been applied to Sonora aemula , this name was only briefly in use after synonymy with Sonora in 1945 ( Bogert and Oliver 1945) from 1945–1955 ( Smith and Taylor 1945; Maldonado-Koerdell 1953; Zweifel and Norris 1955) and from 2004–2012 ( Lemos-Espinal et al. 2004a, 2004b, 2004c; Smith et al. 2006; Cox et al. 2012).

Figures

Figure 7. Map of the geographic distribution from IUCN and georeferenced occurrence records from GBIF (grey crosses) for the subgenus Procinura, including Sonora mosaueri and S. aemula. The top of the map has images of the S. mosaueri (a) and the tricolour (b and c) and uniform (d) morphs of S. aemula. Photos by C. L. Cox (a), C. Rodriguez (b), and C. M. Bogert (c, d). Colours of shaded ranges and circular points on the map correspond to the phylogenetic tree in Figures 1 and 2.