Drymoluber dichrous
(Peters, 1863)
Madre Selva field station, Depto Loreto, Peru. January 13, 2013
My first Drymoluber, pictured as found along the trail, and at convenient camera height, and on our first night in the forest in 2013. The generic name is a bit of a mash-up – here’s the etymology of Drymoluber dichrous, as described in the Reptile Database:
“…Amaral (1930) stated that the dentary and hemipenial characters of Herpetodryas dichroa Peters, 1863 suggested that was a taxon closely related and intermediate between Drymobius and Coluber. The generic name Drymoluber (an amalgam of the words Drymobius and Coluber), was proposed to simultaneously distinguish and show the close relationship between Herpetodryas dichroa (now Drymoluber dichrous) and those genera. The name Drymoluber is masculine in gender [COSTA et al. 2013]. Peters (1863) did not comment on the reasons that led him to choose the name dichroa for the species he described. The words dichroa / dichrous comes from the ancient Greek, meaning “two-colored” or “two-skins”, and we suggest that the name may be an allusion to the contrasting color of adult specimens, which dorsum is dark colored, while the venter is light colored [COSTA et al. 2013]”.
My Flickr album for this species is here.
Peru 2013 Flickr album is here.
HerpMapper records for this species are here.
