Between 1996 and 2007 Harold Voris, Daryl Karns, and myself conducted field work on homalopsid snakes in Southeast Asia. We enlisted local fishermen to collect snakes from gill nets.

These men are collecting fish for their use, and snakes for us.

We also examined mangrove for homalopsid snakes that uses brackish water. Here HKV is looking for Cerberus.

The DRK looking for a homalopsid carrying a radio transmitter.

Here I (JCM) am looking in some man-made ponds for homalopsids.

Here I (JCM) am looking in some man-made ponds for homalopsids.

Viewing homalopsid snakes in the wild is extremely difficult because of their preference for mud. To get photos like these we released the snakes and quickly took photos.

Enhydris subtaeniata was long confused with Enhydris enhydris until we recognized them as distinct.

The research projects involved students from several colleges and universities.

Papers

1999. The ecology of the water snakes of Ban Tha Hin, Songkhla Province, Thailand. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society 47:129-147.  (Murphy, Voris, Karns, Chan-Ard, Suvunrat)

2002. Female reproduction in the rainbow water snake, Enhydris enhydris (Serpentes, Colubridae, Homalopsinae) The Natural History Journal of Chulalongkorn University 2(1):31-37. (Murphy, Voris, Stuart, Platt)

2002. Phylogenetic Relationships of the Oriental-Australian Rear-Fanged Water Snakes (Colubridae: Homalopsinae) Based on Mitochondrial DNA Sequences. Copeia 2002 (4):906-915. (Voris, Alfaro, Karns, Starnes, Thompson, Murphy)

2002. The prey and predators of homalopsine snakes. Journal of Natural History 36:1621-1632. (Voris, Murphy)

2005. A new species of Enhydris (Serpentes: Colubridae: Homalopsinae) from the Kapuas river system, West Kalimantan, Indonesia. (Murphy, Voris, Auliya).

2005. A New Thai Enhydris (Serpentes: Coulubridae: Homalopsinae) The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 53:271-275. (Murphy, Voris)

2005. Comparison of semi-aquatic snake communities associated with the Khorat Basin, Thailand The Natural History Journal of Chulalongkorn University 5(2):73-90.

2007 Homalopsid Snakes, Evolution in the Mud, Krieger Publishing (Murphy)

2007. A Review of Enhydris maculosa (Blanford, 1879) and the Description of a Related Species (Serpentes, Homalopsidae). Hamadryad. Vol. 31, No. 2: 57-63. (Murphy)

2010. Phylogeny and biogeography of the Enhydris clade (Serpentes: Homalopsidae). Zootaxa 2452:18-30 (Karns, Lukoschek, Osterhage, Murphy, Voris)

2010. Semi-aquatic snake communities of the central plain region of Thailand. Tropical Natural History 10:1-25. (Karns, Murphy, Voris)

2011. First molecular evidence for the phylogenetic placement of the enigmatic snake genus Brachyorrhos (Serpentes: Caenophidia). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 61:953-957. (Murphy, Mumpuni, Sanders).

2011. The Nomenclature and Systematics of Some Australasian Homalopsid Snakes (Squamata: Serpentes: Homalopsidae). The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 59(2): 229–236.

2012. Differences Among Populations of the Mekong Mud Snake (Enhydris subtaeniata: Serpentes: Homalopsidae) in Indochina. Tropical Natural History 12(2):175-188. (Voris, Murphy, Karns, Kremer, O’Connell),

2012. Phylogeography of the Mekong mud snake (Enhydris subtaeniata): the biogeographic importance of dynamic river drainages and fluctuating sea levels for semi-aquatic taxa in Indo-China. Ecology and Evolution doi: 10.1002/ece3.29 (Lukoschek, Osterhage, Karns, Murphy, Voris),

2012. Sampling Marine and Estuarial Reptiles. (Voris, HK. and Murphy JC) Pages 192-196, in: Reptile Biodiversity: Standard Methods for Inventory and Monitoring, McDiarmid RW, Foster, MS, Guyer, C., Gibbons, JW, and Chernoff, N (eds). University of California. Press, Berkeley.

2012. The Dog-faced Water Snakes, A Revision of the Genus Cerberus Cuvier, (Squamata, Serpentes, Homalopsidae), With the Description of a New Species. Zootaxa 3484:1-34. (Murphy, Voris, Karns),

2012. The Masked Water Snakes of the Genus Homalopsis Kuhl & van Hasselt, 1822 (Squamata, Serpentes, Homalopsidae) with the description of a new species. Zootaxa 3208:1-26. Murphy, Voris, Murthy, Traub, Cumberbatch),

2012. The Moluccan Short-tailed Snakes of the Genus Brachyorrhos Kuhl (Squamata, Serpentes, Homalopsidae), and the Status of Calamophis Meyer. The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 60(2):515-523. (Murphy, Mumpuni, De Lang, Gower, Sanders).

2012. The status of Eurostus dussumierii Duméril, Bibron and Duméril and Hypsirhina chinensis Gray (Reptilia, Squamata, Serpentes) With Comments on the Origin of Salt Tolerance in Homalopsid Snakes (Kumar, Sanders, George, Murphy),

2012. Synonymized and Forgotten, The Bird’s Head Stout-tailed Snakes, Calamophis Meyer (Squamata, Serpentes, Homalopsidae). The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 60(2):515-523. (Murphy)

2013 An Unusual, Fangless Short-tailed Snake (Squamata, Serpentes, Homalopsidae) from Sumatra, Indonesia. Asian Herpetological Research 2013, 4(2): 140–146 (Murphy Voris).

2013. The Dog-faced Water Snake (Cerberus rynchops) and Gerard’s Mud Snake (Gerarda prevostiana) at the western edge of their distribution. (Vyas, Murphy, Voris.) Herpetological Review, 44(1):34-36.

2014. A Checklist and Key to the Homalopsid Snakes (Reptilia, Squamata, Serpentes), with the Description of New Genera. Murphy & Voris.

2014. An annotated bibliography to the Oriental-Australian rear-fanged water snakes (Serpentes: Colubridae: Homalopsidae) 1.2 January,

2020. A new species of Brachyorrhos from Seram, Indonesia and notes on fangless homalopsids (Squamata, Serpentes). Philippine Journal of Systematic Biology DOI 10.26757/pjsb2020b14015

2021. Phylogenetics of mud snakes (Squamata: Serpentes: Homalopsidae): A paradox of both undescribed diversity and taxonomic inflation. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 160: 107109 (Berstein, Murphy, Voris, Brown, Ruane).