Systematic review of the polychromatic ground snakesAtractus snethlageaecomplex reveals four new species from threatened environments

Abstract

We review the Atractus snethlageae species complex based on the examination of 330 specimens throughout its entire distribution, including its type series. We redefine A. snethlageae and recognize four new species previously assigned to it in the literature and natural history collections. Two of them are diagnosed through both phenotypic (meristic, morphometric, color pattern, and male genital structure) and molecular (phylogeny) evidence, while the other two are recognized on the basis of morphological characters only. We show that some Amazonian lowland species have more restricted ranges. The area covering the eastern portion of the state of Pará and western portion of the state of Maranhão in Brazil harbors restricted endemism for Atractus. This biogeographically important region is also the most threatened within Amazonia. Finally, we discuss the expected changes in the taxonomy of ground snakes with more robust hypotheses based on well‐sampled phylogenies.

First national assessment of wildlife mortality in Ecuador: an effort from citizens and academia to collect roadkill data at country scale.

“…snakes. In a survey conducted in 2014, Medrano-Vizcaíno & Espinosa (2021), found two roadkilled individuals attributed to the genusAtractus in Napo that were latter described as new species (described by Melo-Sampaio et al, 2021;Arteaga et al, 2022). Road ecology research in areas with poorly-known and undescribed species would be valuable, both to quantify impacts but also to potential expand our understanding of these species.…”

Leaving no stone unturned: three additional new species of Atractus ground snakes (Serpentes, Colubridae) from Ecuador discovered using a biogeographical approach

“…Our included samples of A. orcesi Savage, 1955 form a strongly supported sister clade to A. duboisi (Boulenger, 1880). A new species previously confused with A. ecuadorensis Savage, 1955, A. orcesi, and A. resplendens is not closely related to any of these species, but is recovered as the strongly supported sister species to a clade that contains A. ukupacha Melo-Sampaio et al, 2021, A. pachacamac Melo-Sampaio et al, 2021, A. snethlageae da Cunha & do Nascimento, 1983, A. dapsilis Melo-Sampaio et al, 2019, A. schach (Boie, 1827), and A. trefauti Melo-Sampaio et al, 2019. The latter two are sister species and their topological distance is smaller than intraspecific distances in other Atractus species sampled.…”

“…A total of 274 DNA sequences were used to build a phylogenetic tree of the genus Atractus, of which 32 were generated during this work and 242 were downloaded from GenBank, most of which were produced by Arteaga et al (2017), Melo-Sampaio et al (2021), and The best partition strategies along with the best-fit models of evolution were obtained in PartitionFinder 2.1.1 (Lanfear et al 2016) under the Bayesian information criterion. Phylogenetic relationships were assessed under both a Bayesian inference (BI) approach in MrBayes 3.2.0 (Ronquist and Huelsenbeck 2013) and a maximum likelihood (ML) approach in RAxML-NG v. 1.1.0 (Kozlov et al 2019).…”

“…Adults of A. gigas from Ecuador are uniformly rich dark brown or glossy black, and the skin between the scales is whitish (Arteaga 2022). QCAZ 14946, a specimen identified as A. atlas in Melo-Sampaio et al (2021) from Reserva Biológica Cerro Plateado, just 7 km from the Peruvian border on the southeastern slopes of the Ecuadorian Andes, resembles Peruvian "A. gigas" as depicted in Passos et al (2010) in having a short loreal, dorsal scales with a cream base, first four infralabials contacting chinshields, and fewer than 30 subcaudals. This specimen was included in our phylogeny (Fig.…”

A New Species of Osteocephalus Steindachner, 1862 (Anura, Hylidae), From Brazilian Amazonia

“…The increasing number of species descriptions in this interfluve is a result of two main factors: the crescent (but still low) representativeness of Amazon-based taxonomists, and the increase of inventories in poorly sampled areas (Ferra˜o et al, 2016;Melo-Sampaio et al, 2020, 2021b. Alarmingly, conservation of this highly biodiverse region is severely threatened by habitat loss led by illegal deforestation and wildfires (Barni et al, 2015;Brando et al, 2020;Silveira et al, 2020;Souza et al, 2020;Melo-Sampaio et al, 2021c). Although several protected areas exist in southwestern Amazonia (e.g., Arapixi Extractive Reserve and National Forest of Iquiri), the increase in small-patch deforestation of protected areas in this region limits the effective conservation of its biodiversity (Kalamandeen et al, 2018).…”