title: A new species of the genus Rhabdophis Fitzinger, 1843 (Squamata: Colubridae) from Guangdong Province, southern China.
abstract: A new species, Rhabdophis guangdongensis sp. nov., is described from the Guangdong Province, China. It can be easily distinguished from other known congeners by cyt b and c-mos sequences, and by the following combination of morphological characters: body size small; head distinct from the neck; 20 maxillary teeth, the three most posterior teeth strongly enlarged, and not separated by diastemata from other teeth; six supralabials, the third and fourth touching the eye; seven infralabials, the first four in contact with anterior chin shields; dorsal scales in 15 rows throughout the body, weakly keeled, the outer row smooth; 126 ventrals; 39 paired subcaudals; anal scale divided; 44 pairs of narrow dorsolateral black cross-bars on body and 15 pairs on tail; body and tail with two dorsolateral longitudinal brownish-red lines, respectively with a series of white spots in cross-bars. The description of this new species brings the total number of described species of this genus to 21 and represents the tenth known Rhabdophis species in China.
authors.affiliation: Life Science College of Sichuan University, Key Laboratory of Bio-resources and Eco-environment (Ministry of Education), Sichuan Chengdu 610064, P.R. China College of Life and Basic Sciences, Sichuan Agricultural University, Sichuan Ya'an 625014, P.R. China; Email: unknown.
authors.forename: Guang-Xiang
authors.initials: GX
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol/The Museum of Biology, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangdong Guangzhou 510275, P.R. China; Email: wangyy@mail.sysu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Ying-Yong
authors.initials: YY
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Zoology, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Sakyo, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan; Email: unknown.
authors.forename: Hirohiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Takeuchi
authors.affiliation: Life Science College of Sichuan University, Key Laboratory of Bio-resources and Eco-environment (Ministry of Education), Sichuan Chengdu 610064, P.R. China hengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sichuan Chengdu 610041, P.R. China; Email: zem006@163.com.
authors.forename: Er-Mi
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002681:China; D003710:Demography; D017753:Ecosystem; D010802:Phylogeny; D012911:Snakes / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D013045:Species Specificity