Identifying Australian snakes by color patterns

Title: Identifying Australian snakes by color patterns

Creators: Harith Farooq, Peter Uetz

Submitted May 1, 2020.
Accepted August 18, 2020.
Published online at www.senckenberg.de/vertebrate-zoology on September 9, 2020.
Published in print Q3/2020.

DOI: 10.26049/VZ70-3-2020-15
PDF/A 13 MB

Published by Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung

Date (Publication Year): 2020

Resource Type (General): TEXT

Resource Type (optional): Vertebrate Zoology, Scientific Article

Description (en): We investigated if Australian snakes can be identified by using their color, pattern, size and location. We coded these criteria for the 185 terrestrial snake species of Australia (excluding 37 species of sea snakes from our analysis). Uniformly brown snakes are most common, followed by banded and blotched species. Some highly variable species can have dozens of color patterns. For most localities these four criteria are sufficient to narrow down the number of possible species to fewer than 21 species and in most cases accurate identification is possible with a few photos for comparison. Given that most Australian snakes are venomous, accurately identifying snakes is also of medical importance. In addition to identifying snakes, colors and patterns provide useful data for phylogenetic and ecological studies.

Key words: Elapidae, geography, Pythonidae, Typhlopidae.

Electronic Supplement File:
VZ_70-3_Farooq_Electronic_Supplements.zip (download)

Citation: Farooq, H., Uetz, P. (2020). Identifying Australian snakes by color patterns. Vertebrate Zoology, 70(3): 473-482. https://doi.org/10.26049/VZ70-3-2020-15