Aipysurus is a genus of venomous snakes in the subfamily Hydrophiinae of the family Elapidae. Member species of the genus are found in warm seas from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy The first description of the genus Aipysurus was published by Bernard Germain de Lacépède in 1804, accommodating his description of a new species found in Australian seas, Aipysurus laevis, the type species of the genus. The description was accompanied by an illustration of the new species. The genus is one of a small group of the viviparous sea snakes (Hydrophiinae: Hydrophiini) with Emydocephalus, also mostly restricted to the seas between Timor, New Guinea, and northern Australia.
These species are recognised in the genus Aipysurus:
ImageSpeciesAuthorityCommon nameGeographic rangeAipysurus apraefrontalis Short-nosed sea snakeWestern AustraliaAipysurus duboisii Reef shallows sea snake; Dubois' sea snake coastal areas of AustraliaAipysurus eydouxii Spine-tailed sea snake; Marbled sea snake; Beaded sea snake Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Thailand, Indonesia, Peninsular Malaysia, Vietnam and New Guinea Aipysurus foliosquama Leaf-scaled sea snake Ashmore and Cartier Islands Aipysurus fuscus Dusky sea snakeTimor Sea between Australia, Indonesia and East Timor Aipysurus laevis Olive-brown sea snake; Olive sea snake Great Barrier ReefAipysurus mosaicus Mosaic sea snakeNorthern Australia and New GuineaAipysurus pooleorum Shark Bay sea snakeWestern Australia, midwest coast (Shark Bay)Aipysurus tenuis Arafura sea snakeWestern Australia, from near Dampier to Broome, and in the Arafura Sea
Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Aipysurus.
A subspecies nominated in 1974 as A. laevis pooleorum was elevated in 1983 to full species status, as A. pooleorum, without explanation by the authors. The same revision (Wells and Wellington, 1983) also resurrected the species name Aipysurus jukesii (Gray, 1846), recognised as a synonym of Lacépède's Aipysurus laevis.
Notes
References
Further reading Boulenger, George Albert (1896). Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume III., Containing the Colubridæ (Opisthoglyphæ and Proteroglyphæ) ... London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiv + 727 pp. + Plates I-XXV. (Genus Aipysurus, p. 303). Goin, Coleman J.; Goin, Olive B.; Zug, George R. (1978). Introduction to Herpetology, Third Edition. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company. xi + 378 pp. . (Aipysurus, p. 332).
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