Polemon (snake)

Genus of snakes

Polemon

Polemon bocourti
Scientific classification
Kingdom:  | Animalia
Phylum:  | Chordata
Class:  | Reptilia
Order:  | Squamata
Suborder:  | Serpentes
Family:  | Atractaspididae
Subfamily:  | Aparallactinae
Genus:  | Polemon
Jan, 1858
Synonyms

Miodon A.H.A. Duméril, 1859

Polemon is a genus of rear-fanged mildly venomous snakes in the family Atractaspididae. The genus is endemic to Africa. Fifteen species are recognized as being valid.[1][2]

Miodon is a synonym. The mollusc genus of family Carditidae invalidly described by Carpenter in 1863 has been renamed Miodontiscus.

## Common name

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The common name of this genus is snake-eaters, for their habit of feeding mainly on smaller snakes.

## Description

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In the genus Polemon the maxillary is very short, with three small teeth, followed, after an interspace, by a very large, grooved fang situated anterior to the eye. The third and fourth mandibular teeth are large and fang-like. The head is small, and not distinct from neck. The eyes are minute, with round pupils. The nostrils are in a divided nasal which does not touch the rostral, the internasal forms a suture with the first upper labial. No loreal is present. The parietal is narrowly in contact with an upper labial.

The body is cylindrical, with a very short tail. Dorsal scales are smooth, without apical pits, and are arranged in 15 rows. The ventrals are rounded; the subcaudals are single (entire),[3] or double (divided).

## Species

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Genus Polemon \-- 13 species

Species[1] | Taxon author[1] | Subspecies*[1] | Common name[2] | Geographic range[2]
P. acanthias[4] | (J.T. Reinhardt, 1860)  | ————  | Reinhardt's snake-eater  | Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone.
P. ater | Portillo, Branch, Tilbury, Nagy, Hughes, Kusamba, Muninga, Aristote, Behangana & Greenbaum, 2019  | ————  | black snake-eater  | Central Africa, East Africa.
P. barthii | Jan, 1858  | ————  | Guinea snake-eater  | Guinea, Ivory Coast, Cameroon.
P. bocourti | Mocquard, 1897  | ————  | Bocourt's snake-eater  | Cameroon, Río Muni, Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire).
P. christyi | (Boulenger, 1903)  | ————  | eastern snake-eater  | Dem. Rep. Congo, Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, Zambia.
P. collaris | (W. Peters, 1881)  | brevior
longior | collared snake-eater  | Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Nigeria, Central African Republic.
P. fulvicollis | (Mocquard, 1887)  | gracilis
graueri
laurenti | African snake-eater  | Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), Congo, Uganda.
P. gabonensis | (A.H.A. Duméril, 1856)  | schmidti | Gaboon snake-eater  | Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Central African Republic.
P. gracilis | (Boulenger, 1911)  | ————  | graceful snake-eater  | South Cameroon.
P. graueri | (Sternfeld, 1908)  | ————  | Grauer's snake-eater  | Uganda, eastern Zaire.
P. griseiceps | (Laurent, 1947)  | ————  | Cameroon snake-eater  | Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo.
P. leopoldi | (de Witte, 1941)  | ————  |  | Rwanda.
P. neuwiedi | (Jan, 1858)  | ————  | Ivory Coast snake-eater  | Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Nigeria.
P. notatus | (W. Peters, 1882)  | aemulans |  | Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon.
P. robustus | (de Witte & Laurent, 1943)  | ————  | Zaire snake-eater  | Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), Central African Republic.

* Not including the nominate subspecies.

## See also

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* Snakebite.

## References

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1. ^ a b c d "Polemon". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 5 September 2007.
2. ^ a b c Polemon at the Reptarium.cz Reptile Database. Accessed 5 May 2009.
3. ^ Boulenger GA (1896). Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume III., Containing the Colubridæ (Opisthoglyphæ and Proteroglyphæ), Amblycephalidæ, and Viperidæ. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiv + 727 pp. + Plates I–XXV. (Genus Polemon, p. 253).
4. ^ "A Cryptic New Species of Polemon (Squamata: Lamprophiidae, Aparallactinae) from the Miombo Woodlands of Central and East Africa". Novataxa. Retrieved 11 February 2019.

## Further reading

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* Jan [G] (1858). "Plan d'une Iconographie descriptive des Ophidiens et description sommaire de nouvelles espèces de Serpents ". Revue et Magasin de Zoologie Pure et Appliquée, Paris, 2e Série 10: 438–449, 514–527. (Polemon, new genus, p. 520). (in French).

Taxon identifiers

Polemon|

* Wikidata: Q1006800
* Wikispecies: Polemon
* EoL: 13759
* GBIF: 2472689
* iNaturalist: 116649
* ITIS: 700188
* NCBI: 292859
* Open Tree of Life: 1044808