Micrelapidae Das & Greenbaum & Meiri & Bauer & Burbrink & Raxworthy & Weinell & Brown & Brecko & Pauwels & Rabibisoa & Raselimanana & Merila 2023, new family

Micrelapidae new family. Type genus: Micrelaps Boettger, 1880. Type species: Micrelaps muelleri Boettger, 1880. Etymology: Boettger (Bottger ¨) did not give the etymology for the generic nomen but was almost certainly from the Latin adjective micro-, derived from the Greek mikros (small), and elaps, the Latinised form of the Greek noun´ellops or´elaps (literally sea-fish or serpent, but here in reference to the snake genus Elaps, now a synonym of Homoroselaps). Micrelapidae fam. nov. is derived from Micrelaps by the taking the stem elap- of the root word of the nomen. Content: Micrelaps muelleri Boettger, 1880, Micrelaps bicoloratus Sternfeld, 1908, Micrelaps vaillanti Mocquard, 1888, Brachyophis revoili Mocquard, 1888. Diagnosis and definition: In the crania of Micrelaps and Brachyophis we examined the ectopterygoid was laterally and medially expanded at the point of contact with the pterygoid, with this expansion not being contiguous with the ectopterygoid anterolateral and anteromedial lobes (Fig. 4, Supplementary material fig. 53, 54). The lateral expansion is a posterolaterally and somewhat ventrally directed, very prominent protuberance continuous with a ridge on the ventral surface of the pterygoid. This character state was not present in any other cranium we examined and is very likely a synapomorphy of the family. Other common cranial characters include a premaxilla adapted for a fossorial lifestyle, premaxillary transverse processes closely approaching the maxilla, a short maxilla with ascending processes abutting the prefrontal, well-developed, grooved fangs below the orbit, preceded by a diastema and 2 – 3 teeth, an ectopterygoid deeply forked into anterolateral and anteromedial lobes that articulate with maxillary ectopterygoid processes leaving a foramen in the middle, prefrontal and parietal supraorbital processes laterally bordering the frontal and almost meeting each other, a tendency towards fusion of cranial bones (especially because the supratemporal is absent, very likely fused to the quadrate in Brachyophis and to posterior chondrocranial elements in Micrelaps), and a short quadrate. Brachyophis, however, differs from the type genus in possessing a postorbital (versus postorbital absent in Micrelaps), dorsolateral adductor ridges on the parietal (versus a single sagittal ridge in Micrelaps), only a faint pseudocoronoid ridge on the dentary (versus a prominent process in Micrelaps). Scalation characters that are common in both genera include 1 nasal, 7 supralabials, 15 smooth dorsal scale rows, absence of a loreal, 2 anal shields. Ventrals range from 170 to 280 and subcaudals (paired) 16 – 32 in Micrelaps (Boulenger, 1896; De Witte and Laurent, 1947; Rasmussen, 2002; Werner et al., 2006; Spawls et al., 2018). In Brachyophis, ventrals range from 103 to 123 and subcaudals (single) 8 – 14 (De Witte and Laurent, 1947; Lanza, 1966). Brachyophis has a large, azygous occipital shield (Boulenger, 1896). Micrelaps and Brachyophis possess a rectal caecum and a short genital sinus in the female, two soft tissue traits used to cluster these two genera by Underwood and Kochva (1993). Distribution: Micrelaps spp. is distributed in eastern and northeastern Africa and western Asia. Brachyophis is limited to Somalia in north-eastern Africa. Distribution: Micrelaps spp. is distributed in eastern and northeastern Africa and western Asia. Brachyophis is limited to Somalia in north-eastern Africa. Remarks: Geniez (2018) commented that Micrelaps “could constitute a separate family within its own right, that of Micrelapsidae”. Bar et al. (2021) likewise wrote that “. The actual placement of the genus [Micrelaps] is often poorly supported within studies and inconsistent across them. We suspect it will soon be placed in its own family — as is the norm in taxonomy these days. We predict this family, containing a single genus (Micrelaps), will be called Micrelapidae.”. However, these authors did not explicitly express that they are erecting a new family for these snakes. Rather, it was a suggestion about what should/could be done. It therefore is not in accordance with Article 16.1 and Recommendation 16A of The Code (ICZN, 1999). They also did not also provide characters for the express purpose of differentiating or diagnosing “Micrelapsidae” or “ Micrelapidae ”, nor did they cite a work containing the same (again, very likely because a nomenclatural act presumably was not the intention of Geniez [2018] and it was not the intention of SM, who wrote this in Bar et al. [2021] either) and this contravenes Articles 13.1.1, 13.1.2 and Recommendation 13A of The Code. Hence, we regard the nomen “Micrelapsidae” as unavailable. The ZooBank LSID for this taxonomic action is urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:D8475246-AD8E-4886-AB55- 12F6F242E9C4.
Published as part of Das, Sunandan, Greenbaum, Eli, Meiri, Shai, Bauer, Aaron M., Burbrink, Frank T., Raxworthy, Christopher J., Weinell, Jeffrey L., Brown, Rafe M., Brecko, Jonathan, Pauwels, Olivier S. G., Rabibisoa, Nirhy, Raselimanana, Achille P. & Merila, Juha, 2023, Ultraconserved elements-based phylogenomic systematics of the snake superfamily Elapoidea, with the description of a new Afro-Asian family, pp. 1-11 in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 180 on pages 8-9, DOI: 10.1016/j.ympev.2022.107700, http://zenodo.org/record/7746501
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