The South and Southeast Asian snake genus Oligodon, known for its egg-eating feeding behavior, has been a taxonomically and systematically challenging group. This work provides the first phylogenetic hypothesis for the genus. We use approximately 1900 base pairs of mitochondrial DNA sequence data to infer the relationships of these snakes, and we examine congruence between the phylogeny and hemipenial characters. A hypothesis for the position of Oligodon within the Colubridae is also proposed. We discuss the implications of the phylogeny for previous taxonomic groupings, and consider the usefulness of the trees in analysis of behavior and biogeography of this genus。

More results have been published in Asian Herpetological Research, which issued by Chengdu Institute of Biology of CAS.