Finding a shadow in the dark: rediscovery of Fugler’s Shadow Snake (Emmochliophis fugleri Fritts & Smith, 1969) after 54 years, with comments on its conservation status, distribution, and the tribe Diaphorolepidini

Abstract

Herein we report the second known record of Emmochliophis fugleri Fritts & Smith, 1969, present the first color images of the species, extend its known distribution and elevational range, provide the snout–vent and tail lengths of the holotype, and demonstrate that the condition of fused prefrontals is an unreliable diagnostic character for the genus Diaphorolepis. Considering the rarity of this snake as well as the imminent threat that mining poses to the Río Manduriacu Reserve, we recommend a conservation status of Critically Endangered for E. fugleri. 

Contemporary Methods and Evidence for Species Delimitation

“…These Neotropical snakes are extremely rare, and until the description of Synophis calamitus by Hillis (1990), every species of Synophis and Emmochliophis had been described from single specimens. To this day, one of the species is still known only from the holotype collected in the late 1800s (Boulenger, 1898), and it was 50 years after the description of Emmochliophis fugleri (Fritts and Smith, 1969) before a second specimen of that species was collected (Maynard et al, 2021). Hillis (1990) reconstructed the phylogeny of the group based on morphological characters (he collected tissues from the new species, but no material was available from any of the other species for comparison), and described the new species Synophis calamitus based on two specimens, one of which was a roadkill specimen.…”