| The Xenopeltidae is composed of one genus with two recognized species. One species is endemic to Hainan Island, China. The other is widespread in Southeast Asia, ranging from Myanmar to southern China and southward into the Indochina, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. These snakes feed on other snakes and other vertebrates. The more common species is known to lay eggs. These snakes have also been placed in the family Boidae. Xenopeltis has some characters that make it unusual, the skull is very compact with many of the bones fused, the premaxillary bone has teeth, the prefrontal bone is lost, and there is no coronoid bone. Its auditory bone is similar to the pipe snakes in the Cylindrophis. Wilcox et al. (2002, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 25:361-371) have a tree that suggests that Xenopeltis is the sister to the pythons + Loxocemus. |
