The Guyanas, eastern and southern Venezuela, extreme south of Columbia.
Holotype: MNHN 7654 according to Roze, 1996, Coral Snakes of the Americas: 328pp.[210].
Type-locality: Surinam
The elevation of the four subspecies, M. p. circinalis (Duméril, Bibron and Duméril, 1854), M. p. medemi Roze, 1967, M. p. paraensis Cunha and Nascimento, 1973, M. p. remotus Roze, 1987, to specific level, and the synonymization of subspecies M. p. donosoi Hoge, Cordeiro and Romano Hoge, 1976 with M. parensis, rendered M. psyches monophyletic.
Two taxa, M. donosoi Hoge, Cordeiro, and Romano, 1976, and M. psiches [sic] paraensis Cunha and Nascimento, 1973, have sometimes been associated with M. psyches, but recently have been considered a distinct species, M. paraensis. M. psyches medemi was suggested to be close to M. steindachneri by Campbell and Lamar, 1989, Venom. Rept. Latin America, 425pp.[141].
