Naja naja ¨polyocellata¨

have few questions about this ssp. can someone show me some papers where is told something about this (new) name? bought pair of them weekend and thinking this ssp thing. will send pictures when those little snappers settle down bit Wink

There's no valid subspecies "polyocellata".

polyocellata has been and is still often misused for Sri Lankan Naja naja - wether they are "polyocellated" or not.
The subspecies has been described by MEHRTENS (1987), regarded as a synonym to Naja naja by following authors.

I'm looking forward to your pictures to see if yours have a special neck pattern or not.
Regards
Peter

Here´s a sister to Joni´s snakes...

Naja naja ¨polyocellata¨ 032-1

Nice colored snake - but no reason to call her "polyocellata", just a normal biocellated neck pattern.

Peter

Whats biocellated and polycellated?

bi-ocellated --> 2 ocelli (eyespots)
poly-ocellated (or polycellated) --> with additional ocelli

monocellated --> one spot (Naja kaouthia)

Michael Jonasson wrote:: Whats biocellated and polycellated?

I binocellate pattern is the one your picture shows, i.e., the classical spectacle mark. Some Naja naja are termed polyocellated because they have additional ocelli, normally in front of the spectacle mark just behind the head.

As Peter said, the subspecies polyocellata was described (more as a colour form than a ssp.) for Sri Lankan Naja naja by Deraniyagala in around 1960 IIRC (Mehrtens took the term on and popularised it among herp keepers). Since the type locality of Naja naja is Sri Lanka, the local form cannot be anything but the nominate form, so the ssp. is invalid for that reason alone. However, the term persists in the herpetoculture literature. See also http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~bss166/Taxa/AsNaja.htm

Guest

Hi,

this is what polyocellata means:
http://itgmv1.fzk.de/www/itg/uetz/herp/photos/Naja_naja_hood.jpg

There are more variations but all in all these additive eyes are what polyocellata stands for.

thanks for all of you! this starts to be clear to me Smile

Roland Lautensack wrote:: Hi,

this is what polyocellata means:
http://itgmv1.fzk.de/www/itg/uetz/herp/photos/Naja_naja_hood.jpg

There are more variations but all in all these additive eyes are what polyocellata stands for.

Sorry Roland, but this Picture must be some kind of Photoshop work up. the head of the snake looks like a Ophiophagus hannah to me, just look at the huge postocular Scales.

Hi guys,

as mentioned snakes come from us, I think I should explain why we used name "polyocellata". It has nothing to do with "bringing" new "species" into market, and making more money... Not at all.
When we got our group of adult animals of this species, me and Marek were searching for origin of our snakes. As we have them with CITES papers, it wasn`t so difficult (sure paper alone doesn`t mean anything - I know it).

One guy from our country (unfortunatelly, he isn`t alive anymore Crying or Very sad

) brought 4 specimens of this species over 15 years ago from his trip to Sri Lanka. Our big breeding male we had until now (he died few weeks ago Crying or Very sad

) was one of those 4 specimens. Others from our stock are offspring of remaining specimens, and were mixed with new blood of Naja naja later... At the time we got them, information we got was that subspecies living in Sri Lanka is called "polyocellata". We wanted to keep Sri Lanka`s animals away from possible India`s ones, so we started to use name Naja naja "polyocellata". It was at time when I just started with venomous snakes, and my knowledge wasn`t so "good" as it`s now. Real Naja naja from India are very very rare, so basically keeping using of name "polyocellata" is loosing the reason. But one never know, right?

Hope it brought a little light into this topic.

Cheers,
Peter

Guest

Hi Mario,

here`s another one:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/14723857.jpg

Different Snake, different Pattern.

I`m not really deep in this taxonomicthing, but I can`t see a reason for photo shopping such a picture.

Mario Lutz wrote:

Roland Lautensack wrote:: Hi,

this is what polyocellata means:
http://itgmv1.fzk.de/www/itg/uetz/herp/photos/Naja_naja_hood.jpg

There are more variations but all in all these additive eyes are what polyocellata stands for.

Sorry Roland, but this Picture must be some kind of Photoshop work up. the head of the snake looks like a Ophiophagus hannah to me, just look at the huge postocular Scales.

Mario,

There is nothing wrong with that photo - the large scales to the side of the parietals are large temporals, but there are no enlarged occipital scales. The scales are edged in dark, which emphasises the scales.

Cheers,

Wolfgang

So we cleared everything about the famous "polyocellata" - once again.

in my opinion, to prevent us and others from further confusions, we shouldn't use this name.

and @ Peter: "polyocellated specimens aren't restricted to Sri Lanka, they have been reported from India too....

Cheers
Peter

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