Distribution extension of Thamnodynastes pallidus and new records

Herpetology Notes, volume 6: 529-532 (2013) (published online on 30 October 2013)
Distribution extension of Thamnodynastes pallidus and new
records within the distribution of Erythrolamprus reginae,
Imantodes cenchoa and Siphlophis compressus (Serpentes,
Dipsadidae) for the north coast of Bahia, Brazil
Ricardo Marques1,3,*, Moacir S. Tinôco1,2,5, Dennis Rödder3,4, Henrique C. Browne-Ribeiro1,2
The Dipsadidae is the most diverse snake family
distributed across the West Indies and America (Vidal,
Dewynter and Gower, 2010; Uetz et al. 2013), including
245 described species occurring within Brazil (Bérnils
and Costa, 2012). In Brazil, the Cerrado, Caatinga and
Atlantic rainforests are three large ecoregions within the
state of Bahia (Brasil, 2004), hosting more than half of
Brazilian snake species (130 species; Curcio et al. 2012;
Hamdan and Lira-da-Silva, 2012). Herein we report a
distribution extension for T. pallidus, and add a new
geographical distribution for I. cenchoa, E. reginae and
S. compressus on the north coast of Bahia.
In this study, we sampled these species within
ombrophilous forest vegetation in the municipality of
Mata de São João, situated within the core of the Atlantic
forest. We conducted fieldwork for 10 days every two
months between February 2011 and October 2012. Two
surveyors simultaneously searched two different forest
fragments. These consisted of a large and more intact
one measuring about 350 hectares, and a smaller one of
around 10 hectares suffering from strong habitat loss.
Universidade Católica do Salvador, Centro de Ecologia e
Conservação Animal – ECOA. Avenida Prof. Pinto de
Aguiar, 2589. CEP 41740-090. Pituaçu, Salvador, BA,
Brazil.
2
Universidade Federal da Bahia. Rua Barão de Jeremoabo, s/n.
CEP 40170-115. Ondina. Salvador, BA, Brazil.
3
Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Programa de PósGraduação em Zoologia. Rodovia Ilhéus–Itabuna, km 16, CP
110. CEP 45662-900. Ilhéus, BA, Brazil.
4
Zoological Research Museum Alexander Koenig, Department
of Herpetology, Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn, Germany
5
University of Kent at Canterbury; DICE - Durrell Institute of
Conservation and Ecology; School of Anthropology and
Conservation. Marlowe Building, Kent, CT2 7NZ, UK.
*
Corresponding author: [email protected]
1
The size of the complete fragment complex, considering
all the fragments in the region, was 410 ha. Voucher
specimens were housed in the herpetological reference
collection of the Centro de Ecologia e Conservação
Animal (CHECOA) for further examination.
Erythrolamprus reginae semilineatus (voucher
CHECOA 2588) was captured within the large fragment
(-12.459787, -38.228241, at 106 m elevation) at 10:26
a.m. on 11/02/2011. It is a male with head length (HL) of
14.6 mm, tail length (TL) of 147 mm, snout-vent length
(SVL) of 494 mm and 20 g weight. The specimen’s
subspecies status was determined following Dixon
(1983). This may add new information for a taxonomic
review within the group. Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa
(CHECOA 2883) was captured on 03/11/2012 in the 10
hectare fragment (-12.491390, -38.268674, at 63 m) at
8:23 p.m. It was a female, measuring 11.3 mm HL, 182
mm TL, 455 mm SVL and 21 g. Both species are widely
distributed throughout the Atlantic rainforest, Cerrado
and Caatinga ecoregions (Martins and Oliveira, 1998;
Araujo and Almeida-Santos, 2011; Guedes et al. 2011;
Loebmann and Haddad, 2011), but show no previous
records for the region.
Siphlophis compressus and T. pallidus were captured
on 24/05/2012 on the border of the larger fragment
(-12.461343, -38.23439, at 100 m) during the night
at approximately 8:00 p.m. Siphlophis compressus
(CHECOA 2854) is a male, with measurements of 20
mm HL, 227 mm TL, 738 SVL and 30 g.
Siphlophis compressus (Daudin, 1803) is restricted
to forest habitats in the Amazon forest of northern
Brazil, and the Atlantic rainforest from southeastern to
northeastern Brazil (Martins and Oliveira, 1998; Guedes
et al. 2011). Thamnodynastes pallidus (Linnaeus, 1758)
is known from habitats within the Amazon in northern
Brazil. In the Amazon ecoregion its eastward limit is
reached in the state of Pará. It is also reported from the
neighbouring countries of Bolivia, Colombia, Guiana
530
and Venezuela (Cunha and Nascimento, 1978; Bailey,
Thomas and Silva Jr., 2005; Bernarde et al. 2012). In
northeastern Brazil, this species is known to occur in
the states of Paraíba in the Mamanguape municipality,
Pernambuco in the Vicência municipality (Wagler, 1824;
Franco and Ferreira, 2002; Santana et al. 2008) and
Bahia. However, the species’ exact distribution within
Bahia is not known. All four snakes are illustrated in
Figure 1.
The identification of Thamnodynastes species is
complex and under review. However, we apply the
suggested known distributions from Franco and
Ferreira (2002), and Bailey, Thomas and Silva Jr.
(2005), as well as the species’ identification pholidosis
method they have suggested for identification: 152
ventrals, 85 subcaudals, 17-17-13 smooth dorsal scales,
single cloacal plate, 1+2 oculars, 8/8 supralabials, 9/9
infralabials, 2+3 temporals.
Only S. compressus and T. pallidus are classified in
the IUCN Red List as Least Concern (IUCN, 2012).
Ricardo Marques et al.
The latter of which was previously recorded in Vicência
in Pernambuco (Cordeiro and Hoge, 1973), with our
record extending its known distributional range by
approximately 630 km south to northeastern Brazil.
Siphlophis compressus’ southernmost record was
in Ibirapitanga, and then was only recorded 210 km
northward in Sergipe state in Itabaiana municipality
(Guedes et al. 2011). The closest available record of E.
reginae was in Maraú, 210 km south from our record,
and I. cenchoa was recorded only 242 km southward
in Itacaré (Argôlo, 2004). Both species’ northernmost
records occur in four municipalities within the state of
Alagoas, wherein Maceió is the southernmost of these
municipalities where both species were also detected in
ombrophilous vegetation (Silva et al. 2006) (Figure 2).
New distribution records of snake and lizard species
have recently been recorded along the north coast of
Bahia (Couto-Ferreira et al. 2011; Fonseca et al. 2012;
Marques et al. 2011, Marques et al. 2012). The basic
knowledge regarding species diversity and distributions
Figure 1: Dipsadid snakes recorded on the north coast of Bahia, Brazil: A) Imantodes cenchoa cenchoa; B) Erythrolamprus
reginae semilineatus; C) Siphlophis compressus; D) Thamnodynastes pallidus. Photos by Ricardo Marques.
New dipsadid records for the north coast of Bahia
531
Figure 2: Distribution map of the snakes in north-eastern Brazil. Red dots represent previous records: Pernambuco (PE): 1Vicência; Paraíba (PB): 2- Mamanguape = Thamnodynastes pallidus; Alagoas (AL): 3- Maceió = Erythrolamprus reginae and
Imantodes cenchoa; Sergipe (SE): 4- Itabaiana = Siphlophis compressus; Bahia (BA): 5- Itacaré = Imantodes cenchoa; 6- Maraú
= Erythrolamprus reginae; 7- Ibirapitanga = Siphlophis compressus. The green star represents new records in the municipality of
Mata de São João, Bahia.
532
within ecoregions are the underpinning aspects for
biological protection, thus these new records represent a
contribution to the development of this science’s fields.
Acknowledgements. We are grateful to the “Habitat change
and the status of herpetofauna in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil”
research group. The main author is supported by CAPES
funding. In addition, we thank Leonardo Barros Ribeiro for his
contributions to the manuscript, and Rob Ward for the English
review of the manuscript text. Logistical support was provided
by the Herpetofauna Foundation, Reptile Technologies, Instituto
da Mata and Lacerta Ambiental. Fieldwork was conducted under
SISBIO permit Nº 23355-2.
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Accepted by Zoltán Nagy