Fig. 22 in New Taxa And Cryptic Species Of Neotropical Snakes (Xenodontinae), With Commentary On Hemipenes As Generic And Specific Characters

Fig. 22. Illustration (from Pope, 1941: 251), showing copulatory adjustment between hemipenis (left) and female cloaca (right) of Liophis poecilogyrus, as seen by dissection after the snakes had been killed while mating. Pope commented: ''The ventral body wall of the female has been bisected and its halves spread apart to expose the interior of the cloaca, from which the turgid hemipenis was removed. The exposed side of the latter lay against the dorsal wall of the cloaca so that each sulcus spermaticus opened at the orifice of an oviduct.'' Species of Liophis have an apical disc on each hemipenial lobe (as in fig. 17A), which should confine the flow of seminal fluid to the opening of the oviduct; in this case there may have been a slight postmortem retraction of the discs. The area labeled ''ridge'' in this figure corresponds to the apical disc itself, which contains the terminus of the sulcus spermaticus.