Xenophidion schaeferi, also known commonly as the Malayan spinejaw snake or Schäfer's spiny-jawed snake, is a species of snake in the monotypic family Xenophidiidae. The species is endemic to Malaysia.
Etymology The specific name, schaeferi is in honor of German herpetologist Christian Schäfer who collected the holotype.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (Xenophidion schaeferi, p. 234).
Geographic range X. schaeferi is found in the Malaysian state of Selangor, in western Peninsular Malaysia.
Habitat The preferred natural habitat of X. schaeferi is forest.
Reproduction X. schaeferi is oviparous.
DNA sequence divergence of sibling species In the genus Xenophidion, there is one sister species, X. acanthognathus. Molecular analyses of a new specimen of X. acanthognathus reveal that it only differs from the holotype of X. schaeferi by a minimum sequence divergence of 0.27%.
References
Further reading Manthey U, Günther R (1995). "Xenophidion, a new genus with two new species of snakes from Malaysia (Serpentes, Colubridae)". Amphibia-Reptilia 16 (3): 229–240. (Xenophidion schaeferi, new species).