The Silk roads: phylogeography of Central Asian dice snakes (Serpentes: Natricidae) shaped by rivers in deserts and mountain valleys
Journal: Current Zoology
Year: 2023

Influenced by rapid changes in climate and landscape features since the Miocene, widely distributed species provide suitable models to study the environmental impact on their evolution and current genetic diversity. The dice snake <i>Natrix tessellata</i>, widely distributed in the Western Palearctic is one such species. We aimed to resolve a detailed phylogeography of <i>N</i>. <i>tessellata</i> with a focus on the Central Asian clade with 4 and the Anatolia clade with 3 mitochondrial lineages,