Achalinus rufescens, also known as rufous burrowing snake and Boulenger's odd-scaled snake, is a species of snake in the family Xenodermatidae. The species is found in Northern Vietnam and southern and southeastern China, including Hong Kong and Hainan, as far east as Zhejiang.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Achalinus rufescens has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
DNA specimens11
BINs6
Marker genes1
eDNA detections11
The DNA barcodethe species' typical barcode, built from every sequenced specimen
COI-5P624 bp consensus11 specimens
ACGT
▸ drag or hover over the strip to read any position — letter and how much it varies
Violet ticks below the strip = positions where individuals differ; flat = the species' unchanging signature. 76% of positions are identical in every specimen.
Where individuals differ — all 149 variable positions, in barcode order
Each circle is a barcode variant; bigger = more specimens, colour = region. Lines join the most similar variants and the tick marks count the mutations between them — a tight cluster is one “dialect”, a long line a more divergent lineage. Click a circle to list its actual specimens.
Diversity (π)7.9%
Haplotypes6
BINs6
Most divergent pair15.4%
Other
Closest relatives by DNA barcode
The species whose COI barcode is most similar to this one — a quick “who is this most like”. The percentage is how much the barcode differs; it approximates, but is not, the full evolutionary tree.
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
★COI-5P
animal barcode
Organelle genome
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
▸ Tap any coloured segment — or a gene chip — to see what it is
ND1ND2cytochrome c oxidase subunit ICOX2ATP8ATP6COX3ND3ND4LND4ND5ND6CYTB12S ribosomal RNA16S ribosomal RNA
◖ violet arc = the COI-5P barcode — the ~650 bp read used to ID this species
Pick a coloured segment on the ring — or a gene chip — to read what that gene does.
protein-codingrRNAtRNA
07Deep time~20.7 Ma lineage
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
DNA clock origin20.7 Ma TimeTree
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
DNA clock origin
08Occurrence & distribution
Record type180 records
Wild obs. + sensor150
Museum / vouchered30
Range
Area of Occupancy AOO496 km²
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Coordinate accuracy34% within 1 km
≤100 m 23≤1 km 25≤10 km 19>10 km 75
142 georeferenced · 8 without coordinates
Open the mapobservation + sensor150
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Coordinate accuracy24% within 1 km
≤1 km 5≤10 km 16
21 georeferenced · 9 without coordinates
Open the institutions mapphysical evidence30
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
10Collections & institutions
Holding institutions6 of 6 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
Institution
Specimens
Cambridge, US
14
Toronto, CA
8
New Haven, US
3
Berkeley, US
3
Wuzhou, CN
1
Ann Arbor, US
1
6 institutions · 30 of 30 vouchered records shown
09Environmental DNA11 detections
Where the DNA of Achalinus rufescens was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Detections DNA found11
Studies independent surveys1
Signal confidence: weakweighed across independent studies, places & mapped detections
Where its DNA was found
0 of 11 detections have coordinates
Open the map0 countries0
How strong is each trace?
DNA read depthRead counts were not reported for this species — the map shows presence only, not how strong each trace was.
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation4 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility180 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI11 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics11 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗