Abstract:Three individuals of snake were collected from Wuyi Mountain National Nature Reserve, Jiangxi Province in August 2014. All specimens were preserved in 75% ethanol for permanent storage after liver tissues were taken and preserved in 85% ethanol. External morphology was examined and recorded on one of the three (YBU14573). Genomic DNA was extracted from liver tissue using OMEGA Kit and cytochrome b (Cyt b) was targeted and amplified using primers H16064 (5′-CTT TGG TTT ACA AGA ACA ATG CTT TA-3′) and L14910 (5′-GAC CTG TGA TMT GAA AAC CAY CGT TGT-3′). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were performed at 25 μl volume, and amplified DNA was produced after initial denaturing for 4 min at 95 ℃, 35 cycles of denaturation for 45 s at 94 ℃, annealing for 45 s at 58 ℃, extension for 1 min at 72 ℃, final extension for 7 min at 72 ℃, and ending at 10 ℃. The PCR products were purified and sequenced by a commercial company. Sequences editing and management were performed in Lasergene7.1 manually. Finally, all three sequences were obtained and deposited in GenBank (HM46857﹣HM46859; Fig. 3). Bayesian inference (BI) and Maximum Likelihood (ML) analysis were performed in MrBayes 3.2.2 and RAxML 7.0.4 respectively. The DNA substitution model was chosen by Partition Finder 2 using Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), which is a TVM + I + G model for the first codon position, a GTR + I + G model for the second codon position and a TIM + G model for the third position. In BI analysis, three independent runs of four Markov Chains for 5 000 000 generations were summarized, and sampled every 100 generations, and the first 25% were discarded as burnin. The ML analyses were performed in RAxML 7.0.4 under the most complex substitution model (GTRGAMMA) based on the AIC model assessment results. Partitions were unlinked and bootstrap proportions (BSP) were investigated with 1 000 bootstrap replicates using the fast bootstrapping algorithm, and default parameters with others. Both morphological comparison and molecular data consistently indicated these specimens were Pareas hamptoni, which is a species new to Jiangxi Province, China. The new discovery extends the geographical distribution of P. hamptoni to more than 600 kilometers eastward.