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The Cylindrophiidae are a monotypic family of secretive, semifossorial, non-venomous snakes containing the genus Cylindrophis found in southeastern Asia. These are burrowing snakes and most have a banded pattern on the belly. Currently, 14 species are recognized, all with no subspecies. Common names include Asian pipesnakes and Asian cylinder snakes.
The body is cylindrical, with a near-uniform diameter, which leads to the name "pipe snakes". All species are small- to medium-sized, with total lengths ranging from 12.5 cm (5 inches) to 85.7 cm (34 inches).
The teeth are moderate and subequal, with 10–12 in each maxilla and none in the Premaxillary. There are no fangs and no evidence of venom. The eyes have round or vertically subelliptic pupils. The head has large symmetrical shields, with the nostrils in a single nasal, which forms a suture with its fellow behind the rostral. Loreal scale is present, a small postocular scale is present. The dorsal scales are smooth, in 17, 19, 21, or 23 rows depending on the species.Boulenger GA. 1893. Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume I., Containing the Families ... Ilysiidæ ... London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiii + 448 pp. + Plates I-XXVIII. (Genus Cylindrophis, pp. 134-135).
Little is known of the foraging or mating behavior of Cylindrophis. At least one species uses constriction to subdue its prey, which include elongate vertebrates: reptiles (snakes), amphibians (caecilians), and fish (eels). Prey are swallowed from one end using rotational movements of the braincase and mandibles, a process that takes up to 30 minutes for larger prey. This is distinct from the 'pterygoid walk' used by most other species of snakes, which have greater mobility of most skull bones than Cylindrophis.
| C. aruensis | Boulenger, 1920 | Aru cylinder snake | Indonesia: The Aru Islands |
| C. boulengeri | Jean Roux, 1911 | Boulenger's pipesnake | Indonesia: the islands of Babar Islands, Timor, and Wetar, and Timor-Leste |
| C. burmanus | Smith, 1943 | Burmese pipesnake | Myanmar |
| C. engkariensis | Stuebing, 1994 | Engkari pipesnake | Malaysia: Borneo (Sarawak) |
| C. isolepis | Boulenger, 1896 | Jampea Island pipesnake | Indonesia: Jampea Island |
| C. jodiae | Amarasinghe, Ineich, Campbell, & Hallermann, 2015 | Jodi's pipesnake | central Vietnam, China |
| C. lineatus | Dennys, 1880 | Blanford's pipesnake | Indonesia: Borneo, and Malaysia: Sarawak |
| C. maculatus | (Carl Linnaeus, 1758) | Ceylonese cylinder snake | Sri Lanka |
| C. melanotus | Wagler, 1828 | black pipesnake | Indonesia: Sulawesi (Celebes), the Tabukan Islands, the Sangihe Islands, the Sula Islands, Halmahera and Batjan |
| C. opisthorhodus | Boulenger, 1897 | island pipesnake | Indonesia: Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo and Flores. |
| C. osheai | Kieckbusch, Mader, Kaiser, & Mecke, 2018 | O’Shea's pipesnake or Boano pipesnake | Indonesia: Boano |
| C. ruffusT | (Laurenti, 1768) | red-tailed pipesnake | Myanmar and southern China (Fujian, Hong Kong and on Hainan Island), south into Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, the Malay Peninsula and the East Indies to Indonesia (the Riau Archipelago, Sumatra, Bangka Island, Borneo, Java, Sulawesi, Buton and the Sula Islands) |
| C. slowinskii | Bernstein, Bauer, McGuire, Arida, Kaiser, Kieckbusch, & Mecke, 2020 | Slowinski's pipesnake | Myanmar: Kachin State |
| C. subocularis | Kieckbusch, Mecke, Hartmann, Ehrmantraut, O’Shea, & Kaiser, 2016 | Indonesia: south-central Java | |
| C. yamdena | Smith & Sidik, 1998 | Yamdena pipesnake | Indonesia: Yamdena Island |
In a broader sense, Cylindrophiidae & Anomochilidae are most closely related to Uropeltidae, a family of burrowing snakes from southern India & Sri Lanka. These three families are together called the Uropeltoidea and probably last shared a common ancestor in the Eocene, about 45 million years ago. Uropeltoids are probably most closely related to Pythonoidea, and then to Booidea. These three groups probably last shared a common ancestor in the late Cretaceous, about 75 million years ago.
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