Molecular systematics of New World lampropeltinine snakes (Colubridae): implications for biogeography and evolution of food habits

We used mitochondrial gene sequences to infer phylogenetic relationships among North American snakes of the colubrid tribe Lampropeltini (Arizona, Bogertophis, Cemophora , New World Elaphe, Lampropellis, Pituophis, Rhinocheilus, Senticolis, Stilosoma) , and assessed the implications of our findings for the biogeography and evolution of food habits among these serpents. The maximum likelihood phylogeny identified Rhinocheilus as the sister taxon to all other lampropeltinines, and supported the monophyly of Lampropeltis (including Stilosoma) , New World Elaphe , and Pituophis , but not that of Bogertophis. This phylogeny also suggested a sister group relationship between Cemophora and Lampropeltis , and between New World Elaphe and Pituophis , and strongly supported that Sentkolis belongs within Lampropeltini, thus contradicting previous suggestions that Senticolis is not a lampropeltinine. Using a method for approximating ancestral areas of clades, we determined that western North America was most likely the ancestral area of lampropeltinines. Our survey of published studies, combined with unpublished data, indicated that lampropeltinines as a group feed mainly on mammals, less frequently on lizards, birds, and bird eggs, and only rarely on squamate eggs, snakes, anurans, and insects. Some individual species indeed emphasize mammals in their diets, but others most frequently eat lizards, squamate eggs, bird eggs, or snakes, whereas others take two prey types with similar frequency. Our reconstruction of the evolution of food habits among lampropeltinines suggests that a diet emphasizing lizards is ancestral, and therefore diets that mosdy consist of mammals, squamate and bird eggs, and snakes are derived within the clade. In at least some species, smaller individuals prey mostly on lizards and larger ones add mammals to their diets.