eryx

[Spat]

Hi!
somebody can tell me the difference between eryx and gongylophis?
thanks
Spat

[Stockwell]

You should consider these names to basically be the same.
Gongylophis is actually a very old sand boa designation which was given new life by Dr. Tokar's most recent taxonomic work in 1989 and 1996.
He favors the use of Gongylophis over Eryx for some of the sand boas including conicus , muelleri and colubrinus.
CITES has also adopted this and I recently imported conicus and colubrinus as well as Johnii... and they arrived as two different genera.
The conicus and colubrinus were stated as gongylophis on the permit but Indian sand boas were stated as Eryx johnii.

Taxonomy is constantly in a state of flux, especially in Erycines.
Tokar also recently grouped both the Egyption and Kenyan sand boas together as simply Gongylophis colubrinus with no subspecies (dropped loveridgei and the nominate colubrinus colubrinus formerly used for the Egyption race)
The most controversial new developement in Erycinae is Arnold Kluge's
taxonomic proposal to group
Rosy boas(Lichanura) and Calabar pythons(Calabaria) together with Rubber boas within the genera Charina. So a very few breeders are now listing rosy boas as Charina trivergata.
It's no wonder we never talk about subspecies with rosies...
We can't even decide what species they are..

[Tigergenesis]

thanks Roy - I've been wondering about all that.

[Spat]

Thank you! :)
Bye
Spat