Banner ad for Kotabi Publishing's books.   

PILBARA BLACK-HEADED PYTHON
ASPIDITES MELANOCEPHALUS DAVIEII SUBSP. NOV.

Scroll down the page to view a large photo of this snake or to download a 1.4 MB high resolution image:

HOLOTYPE: A specimen at the Western Australian Museum, number 46170 from Tom Price WA Lat:22° 39 Long:117° 40'.

PARATYPE: A specimen at the Western Australian Museum, number 12268 from near Port Hedland, WA. Lat: 20° 19' Long: 118° 34'.

DIAGNOSIS: Known only from Pilbara region of WA, this population of Black-headed Pythons appears to be isolated from the population to the north in the Kimberley Ranges. Some but not all specimens of A. m. davieii are of a distinctly lighter than usual ground colour. However this is not a general diagnostic characteristic on it's own. This author has caught both lighter and more 'normal' coloured specimens in the Goldsworthy/Shay Gap areas of WA. In the northern part of the Pilbara region, the Black-headed Pythons seem to be more common in the hillier areas, while the Womas appear to be found more in the sand-dune habitats. Aspidites melanocephalus davieii like A. m. adelynensis (see above) is separated from other Black-headed Pythons by usually having one loreal, no suboculars and a single pair of large parietals, while most NT and Queensland Black-headed Pythons have 2-4 loreals, 1-2 suboculars and 2-4 pairs of parietals. A. m. davieii is separated from A. m. adelynensis by distribution, being separated by part of the western flank of the Great Sandy Desert where it meets the WA coast. These same differences were identified by Barker and Barker (1994a). Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of A. m. davieii will further ascertain the differences between this and the other Black-headed Pythons.

ETYMOLOGY: Named after Neil Davie, founder of the Victorian Association of Amateur Herpetologists (VAAH) for services to herpetology.

Click on this text or on the image below to download the high resolution version of the same photo (1.4 MB) which has no caption information on it.

Click here to download the high resolution version of this photo (1.4 MB) which has no caption information on it.  This photo may be reproduced by anyone provided that at the same place the original photographer (Raymond Hoser) AND weblink to -smuggled.com- are also acknowledged and/or cited as the source.  These are conditions of reproduction.

The above was from the paper - A revision of the Australasian Pythons.
(Originally published in Ophidia Review 1(1) in "Autumn" 2000 - (Publication date: October 2000), pp. 7-27).

For the text of the full paper

To download the original of this paper - with photos exactly as it appeared in the journal Ophidia Review - as an Adobe Acrobat pdf file

Download the full paper as an MS Word document (better for printing)

  Banner ad for Kotabi Publishing's quality corruption books.   

Corruption websites front page.

Corruption websites media release archive.

Reptiles website/s index page.

Herpetology papers index.

Non-urgent email inquiries via the Snakebusters bookings page at:
http://www.snakebusters.com.au/sbsboo1.htm

Urgent inquiries phone:
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia:
(03) 9812 3322 or 0412 777 211