Boaedon is a genus of snakes, commonly known as brown house snakes, in the family Lamprophiidae. The genus is native to Africa, and was originally described by French zoologists André Marie Constant Duméril, Gabriel Bibron, and Auguste Duméril. However, the species contained in the genus Boaedon were reclassified as belonging to the genus Lamprophis, which had been described by Austrian zoologist Leopold Fitzinger in 1843. This taxonomy remained widely accepted until November 2010 when a phylogenetic study was published by South African herpetologist Christopher M.R. Kelly et al. who resurrected the Boaedon clade. Primary literature usually lists Boaedon and related genera as belonging to the family Lamprophiidae within the superfamily Elapoidea, the superfamily which includes the venomous cobras and mambas.

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