Simalia

Simalia is a genus of snakes in the family Pythonidae.

Simalia
Adult High-Yellow Sorong Amethystine Scrub Python
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Family:	Pythonidae
Genus:	Simalia Gray, 1849

Taxonomy

Simalia Gray, 1849, was a taxonomic synonym of

• Liasis (a genus of non-venomous pythons found in Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia) and
• Morelia (a genus of large snakes, in the family Pythonidae, found in Australia, Indonesia and New Guinea),

but Reynolds et al. (2014)[1] resurrected the genus for the Morelia amethistina species group (which, together with Morelia viridis had made genus Morelia paraphyletic).

Species

The genus Simalia contains the following species:

• S. amethistina (Schneider, 1801) (type species)
• S. boeleni (Brongersma, 1953)
• S. clastolepis (Harvey et al., 2000)
• S. kinghorni (Stull, 1933)
• S. nauta (Harvey et al., 2000)
• S. oenpelliensis (Gow, 1977)
• S. tracyae (Harvey et al., 2000)

Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Simalia.

References

1. Reynolds, R. Graham; Niemiller, Matthew L.; Revell, Liam J. (2014). "Toward a Tree-of-Life for the boas and pythons: Multilocus species-level phylogeny with unprecedented taxon sampling". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 71: 201-213.

Further reading

• Gray JE (1849). Catalogue of the Specimens of Snakes in the Collection of the British Museum. London: Trustees of the British Museum. (Edward Newman, printer). xv + 125 pp. (Simalia, new genus, p. 91).