Two new syntopic species of wolf snakes (genus Lycodon H. Boie in Fitzinger, 1826) from an imperiled ecosystem in the Song Giang River Valley of southern Vietnam (Squamata: Colubridae)

Abstract

An integrative taxonomic analysis of species in the colubrid genus Lycodon Fitzinger, 1826 recovered two new syntopic species of the L. rufozonatus complex from the imperiled Song Giang River valley in Khan Hoa Province, of Southern Vietnam. Although L. truongisp. nov. and L. anakradayasp. nov. are syntopic, they are not particularly closely related and can be differentiated from each other and all other species in the L. rufozonatus complex on the basis of meristics, morphometrics, color pattern, and uncorrected pairwise genetic distance based on the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b. The discovery of these two new range-restricted species and a previously described range-restricted gekkonid in the genus Cyrtodactylus Gray, 1828 from the same valley, underscores the necessity of continued field work in the Song Giang River valley so as to catalog the unrealized herpetological diversity in this area and establish research-based conservation programs.