Woma Aspidites ramsayi Macleay, 1882
The type locality is Fort Bourke in NSW. The snake later described by
Longman in 1913 as Aspidites collaris from near Cunnamulla, Queensland,
is believed to be the same race as the nominate form and is treated here
is synonymous. The distance between Bourke and Cunnamulla is not substantial.
Habitats, including soils and vegetation regimes and herpetofaunas in the
two areas are essentially similar. Thus the type form of Woma is in fact
the Eastern Australian form. It is distinctly more grey in dorsal colour
(as opposed to yellowish brown) than the western subspecies and has far
more prominent dark markings over the eyes as compared to more western
specimens which may or may not have such markings. While distributional
information for Womas in Australia is patchy, partly in reflection of the
relatively remote areas that they occur in, most herpetologists believe
that it is not continuous throughout the arid parts of Australia. For the
purposes of this paper, and until information to the contrary is received,
the nominate subspecies, Aspidites ramsayi ramsayi is herein restricted
to inland parts of NSW and Queensland.
The above was from the paper - A revision of the Australiasian Pythons.
(Originally published in Ophidia Review 1(1) in "Autumn" 2000 - (Publication date: October 2000), pp. 7-27).
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