Geophis sartorii, also known commonly as Sartorius' snail-sucker and the terrestrial snail sucker, is a species of snake in the subfamily Dipsadinae of the family Colubridae. The species is native to southern North America and Central America. There are two recognized subspecies.
Etymology The specific name, sartorii, is in honor of German-born Mexican naturalist Christian Carl Wilhelm Sartorius.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Sibon sartorii, p. 233; S. sartorii macdougalli, p. 164).
The subspecific name, macdougalli, is in honor of naturalist Thomas Baillie MacDougall.
Geographic range G. sartorii is found in southeastern Mexico, and in Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. www.reptile-database.org.
Habitat The preferred natural habitat of G. sartorii is forest, at altitudes from sea level to .
Description G. sartorii may attain a snout-to-vent length of with a tail length of . The body is black, with 16–20 narrow rings, which are yellowish to reddish in color.Boulenger GA (1894). Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume II., Containing the Conclusion of the Colubridæ Aglyphæ. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xi + 382 pp. + Plates I–XX. (Tropidodipsas sartorii, pp. 296–297).
Diet G. sartorii preys upon snails.
Reproduction G. sartorii is oviparous.
Mimicry G. sartorii mimicks Micrurus elegans, a species of venomous coral snake with which it is sympatric.
Subspecies Two subspecies are recognized as being valid, including the nominotypical subspecies. Geophis sartorius macdougalli Geophis sartorii sartorii
Nota bene: A trinomial authority in parentheses indicates that the subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Geophis.
References
Further reading Cope ED (1863). "Descriptions of new American in the Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 15: 100–106. (Tropidodipsas sartorii, new species, p. 100). De Luna, Manuel; García-Barrios, Roberto (2022). " (Terrestrial Snail Sucker). ". Herpetological Review 53 (3): 509–510. Goldberg SR (2017). " (Terrestrial Snail Sucker). ". Herpetological Review 48 (4): 869. Grünwald CI, Toribio-Jiménez S, Montaño-Ruvalcaba C, Franz-Chávez H, Peñaloza-Montaño MA, Barrera-Nava EY, Jones JM, Rodriguez CM, Hughes IM, Strickland JL, Reyes-Velasco J (2021). "Two new species of snail-eating snakes of the genus Tropidodipsas (Serpentes, Dipsadidae) from Southern Mexico, with notes on related species". Herpetozoa 34: 233–257. (Geophis sartorii, new combination). (in English, with abstracts in Spanish and German). Heimes P (2016). Snakes of Mexico: Herpetofauna Mexicana Vol. I. Frankfurt, Germany: Chimaira. 572 pp. . Smith HM (1943). "A new snake of the genus Tropidodipsas from Mexico". Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences 33: 371–373. (Tropidodipsas macdougalli, new species).