Uropeltoidea
The Uropeltoidea, also known as uropeltoid snakes, are a superfamily of snakes that contains uropeltids and Asian pipesnakes.
As of 2018, Uropeltoidea contains 71 species, including the eponymous shield-tail snakes and their relatives, 13 species of Asian pipesnakes, and 3 species of dwarf pipesnakes.
The taxonomy of boas, pythons, and other henophidian snakes has long been debated, and ultimately the decision whether to assign a particular clade to a particular Linnaean rank is arbitrary. The clade name Uropeltoidea emphasizes the relatively close evolutionary relationship among these 71 species, which last shared a common ancestor about 48 million years ago, in contrast to the more distant relationship between uropeltoids and their next closest relatives, pythonoids.
