Records of the Zoological Survey of India - A Journal of Indian Zoology

Shantanu Kundu ¹, Hmar Tlawmte Lalremsanga ², Lal Biakzuala ², Kaomud Tyagi ³, Kailash Chandra ³, Vikas Kumar ¹

Affiliations
1 Centre for DNA Taxonomy, Molecular Systematics Division, Zoological Survey of India, M Block, New Alipore – 700053, Kolkata, IN
2 Developmental Biology and Herpetology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Mizoram University Aizawl – 796004, Mizoram, IN
3 Centre for DNA Taxonomy, Molecular Systematics Division, Zoological Survey of India, M Block, New Alipore – 700053, Kolkata

Abstract

The genetic information (mtCytb) of wide-spread Mock Viper, Psammodynastes pulverulentus is restricted to China and Myanmar. We collected the live individual of P. pulverulentus from Mizoram state in northeast India and generate the partial mtCytb data to affirm the morphology-based species identification. The generated DNA data showed 94.67% similarity with the sequences generated from Myanmar; however, 92.59% to 92.98% similarity with the sequences generated from China through BLAST results. In comparison with other recognized families and subfamilies of alethinophidian and scolecophidians snakes, the studied species depicted discrete clade in the Bayesian Inference (BI) analysis and closely related with the sister species Psammodynastes pictus. The haplotype network revealed distinct haplotype of P. pulverulentus collected from northeast India with 6.6% and 8.9% to 9.6% Kimura 2 parameter (K2P) genetic distance with the Burmese and Chinese collections respectively. The study elucidates the possible cryptic diversity of P. pulverulentus within its wide range distribution, which requires further large-scale attempts with more genetic information to adjudicate the actual diversity.

Keywords

Mimicry, Mitochondrial DNA, Ophidian, Phylogeny, Taxonomy.

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