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NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD

Common Wolf Snake

Lycodon aulicus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Source-backed taxonomic record

Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.

Open encyclopedia reference

Lycodon aulicus, commonly known as the Indian wolf snake and the common wolf snake, is a species of nonvenomous snake in the subfamily Colubrinae of the family Colubridae. The species is native to South Asia and Southeast Asia. Early naturalists suggested its resemblance to the venomous common krait, an instance of Batesian mimicry.

Wikipedia contributors, Lycodon aulicus; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T08:10:19.121113+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name
Lycodon aulicus (Linnaeus, 1758)
Name authority
(Linnaeus, 1758)
Common name
Common Wolf Snake
Rank
species
Accepted status
accepted
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Reptilia
Order
Squamata
Family
Colubridae
Genus
Lycodon
Extinction status
Not supplied by this source

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

  1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
  2. kingdomAnimalia
  3. phylumChordata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. infraphylumGnathostomata
  6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
  7. megaclassTetrapoda
  8. classReptilia Laurenti, 1768
  9. orderSquamata Oppel, 1811
  10. suborderSerpentes Linnaeus, 1758
  11. infraorderAlethinophidia Nopcsa, 1923
  12. familyColubridae
  13. subfamilyColubrinae
  14. genusLycodon
  15. speciesLycodon aulicus (Linnaeus, 1758)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Lycodon. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

SpeciesClassificationSource status
Alcala's Wolf SnakeLycodon alcalai Ota & Ross, 1994ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
David’s Wolf SnakeLycodon davidi Vogel, Nguyen, Kingsada & Ziegler, 2012ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Brown Wolf SnakeLycodon effraenis Cantor, 1847ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Yellow-collared wolf snakeLycodon flavicollis Mukherjee & Bhupathy, 2007ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Big-tooth SnakeLycodon flavozonatus (Pope, 1928)ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Gammie's Wolf SnakeLycodon gammiei (Blanford, 1878)ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Gongshan Wolf SnakeLycodon gongshan Vogel & Luo, 2011ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Twin-spotted Wolf SnakeLycodon jara (Shaw, 1802)ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Laotian Wolf SnakeLycodon laoensis Günther, 1864ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Lycodon liuchengchaoi Zhang, Jiang, Vogel & Rao, 2011ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Müller’s Wolf SnakeLycodon muelleri Duméril, Bibron & Duméril, 1854ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied
Luding Kukri SnakeLycodon multizonatus (Zhao & Jiang, 1981)ColubridaeChordataAccepted speciesExtinction status not supplied

Browse 1,632 records assigned to Colubridae.

Names & synonyms

Names explicitly linked to this accepted taxon in the source. Synonymy can change with revision.

Recorded nameSource status
Lycodon subfuscus Cantor, 1839 Cantor, 1839synonym
Lycodon unicolor Boie, 1827 Boie, 1827synonym
Ophites aulicus Teo & Rajathurai, 1997 Teo & Rajathurai, 1997synonym
Lycodon atropurpureus Cantor, 1839 Cantor, 1839synonym
Coluber aulicus Linnaeus, 1758 Linnaeus, 1758synonym

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

India (Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, north to Himalyas and Assam; Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra [A. Captain, pers. comm.]; throughout India: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa = Odisha, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkand, Punjab [Dino Aulakh, pers. comm.], Tripura, Mizoram), Mascarene Islands, Pakistan, Nepal (Terai, Dolakha District, Kathmandu valley), Bhutan, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka (David & Vogel 1996), Bangladesh, China (Fujian, Yunnan)

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

  1. https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Lycodon&species=aulicus Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:3WKZS. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.