I am looking for a key to snake families or any way to morphologically distinguish the families Boidae and Pythonidae, please not DNA, biogeography or reproduction information, as I already know how boas and pythons differ in those aspects.
I know when its a boa or a python but it's only because I know most of the species in said families. What I want is to be able to identify the family even if its an animal I don't know (maybe a weird morph, an uncommon species, etc) or if its preserved and old (thus with faded colors and patterns, damaged or without locality data).
Pythons has mental groove, all boas do not have mental groove eg : Gongylophis conicus, python scales are smoother than boa, scales of all boas are not smooth some boas have rough scales too, python tails are not blunt but some boas have blunt tail too eg : Eryx jhonii, all pythons have heat sensing pits but all boas do not have heat sensing pit, pythons have distinct spurs but all boas do not have distinct spurs, pythons are always larger when reach to maximum size but not all boas are larger some boas are drwaf for eg : Gongylophis conicus usally ranges around 2.5 to 3 feet in length. Only this much i know about morphological differences in between Pythons and Boas. Thank you.
Dikansh Parmar I'll check the mental groove, the other characteristics (while useful to distinguish Erycinae boas and Pythonidae) are not really useful as they are present in some new world boa genera (Corallus, Epicrates, Boa, Eunectes)
Thank you!!!
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