Snake Multiomic Database
The Cylindrophiidae contains 12 species. They occur in Sri Lanka, southern India, and Southeast Asia through the East Indies. We often call them ”pip snakes” or ” shield-tail snakes”. Cylindrophiids are fossorial snakes with cone-shaped heads, often a strongly keratinized tip, and a short tail. They lack apparent infrared receptors in pits or surface indentations. Girdle and limb remnants occur externally in the trunk musculature. Body size of these are in a range of 0.3 to 0.9 m.
Cylindrophiids are almost exclusively forest inhabitants, preferring to friable soil for burrowing deeply and getting rid of high soil-surface temperatures. They rarely appear on the surface unless discovered by predators or forced by flooded soils. There are still many secrets about their diet, the limited researches and observations suggest earthworms, eels, caecilians, and other snakes might be their prey. Except two species, most of them are viviparous snakes.
We estimated the emergence of Boidae at ~73 Mya using fossil calibrations. Analysis reveal Elapidae, Boidae and Xenopeltidae are the sister groups of Cylindrophiidae.
