THE CENTER FOR NORTH AMERICAN HERPETOLOGY
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Reptilia    Squamata (part-snakes)    Colubridae  
South Texas Groundsnake
Sonora taylori (Boulenger, 1894)
soh-NOHR-ah — TAY-lor-eye
Taxon Links
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Catalog of American Amphibians and Reptiles
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USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database

SSAR 9th Edition Comments:
 There are no current SSAR comments for this taxon.

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Open icons indicate questionable records, including those with coordinate uncertainty greater than 10,000 m (approximately 6 miles). Click a marker to view metadata.
Occurrences:; 209 Total; 140 Museum; 69 Other

The locality database contains 8,094,850 records, and geographic and taxonomic errors exist. Logged-in, registered users may report a potential issue directly from the marker popup.
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Province/State Distribution:
United States: Texas

Taxonomic Etymology:
Named for an American herpetologist.
Sonora — Named after the Sonoran Desert or Sonora state in Mexico, referencing the region where many species in the genus are found.
taylori — A patronym honoring Edward H. Taylor (1889–1978), a prolific American herpetologist who worked extensively on North American and Central American reptiles and amphibians.

First instance(s) of published English names:
South Texas Ground Snake (Sonora taylori: Schmidt, Karl Peterson and D. D. Davis. 1941. Field Book of Snakes of the United States and Canada. C.P. Putnam and Sons, New York. 365pp.); South Texas Ground Snake (Sonora episcopa taylori: Schmidt, Karl P. 1953. A Check List of North American Amphibians and Reptiles. 6th Edition. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois. 280pp.);


Selected References:
1894 Boulenger, George A. Catalogue of Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History), Vol II. Pages in British Museum, London. pp.
1938 Stickel, William H. The snakes of the genus Sonora in the United States and Lower California. Copeia 1938(4):182-190
1943 Stickel, William H. The Mexican snakes of the genera Sonora and Chionactis with notes on the status of other colubrid genera. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 56:109-128
2012 Cox, Christian L. Phylogenetic systematics, populations genetics, and the evolution of color pattern polymorphism and coral snake mimicry in the snake genus Sonora. Dissertation. University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas. 159pp.
2013 Cox, Christian L. and Alison R. Davis Rabosky. Spatial and temporal drivers of phenotypic diversity in polymorphic snakes. The American Naturalist 182(2):E40-E57
2014 Cox, Christian L. and Paul T. Chippindale. Patterns of genetic diversity in the polymorphic ground snake (Sonora semiannulata). Genetica 142:361-370

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