Lycodon alcalai Ota and Ross, 1994

Photo figures 42–43

Alcala’s Wolf Snake

Lycodon alcalai Ota and Ross, 1994:159–162, figs. 2–5.— Lanza, 1999:89, 98.— Siler, Oliveros, Santanen, and Brown, 2013:268, fig. 3.— Wallach, Williams, and Boundy, 2014:391.

Lycodon cf. alcalai, Oliveros, Ota, Crombie, and Brown, 2011:15, fig. 7D.

TYPE LOCALITY AND TYPE SPECIMEN (S).— ~ 2.5 km ENE of Basco on west slope of Mt. Iraya [elev. 150 m], Batan Id, Batanes Ids, off of northern Luzon Id., Philippines. Holotype: PNM 990.

PHILIPPINE DISTRIBUTION (ENDEMIC) (Map 21A [p. 132]).— Babuyan Ids. (Babuyan Claro, Calayan, Camiguin Norte), also Batan and Sabtang Ids., off of northern Luzon.

REMARKS.— Siler et al. (2013) sampled both known islands within the distribution of L. alcalai, and inferred a very shallow divergence between this species and L. bibonius but no genetic divergence between L. alcalai and L. chrysoprateros, a species described from Dalupiri Island (Ota and Ross [1994]) and with which L. alcalai may be conspecific.

CONSERVATION STATUS [IUCN].— Least Concern [2016] ver. 3.1.