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A new species of Tachymenoides (Serpentes: Dipsadidae: Tachymenini) from the puna of the Otishi National Park in Peru

  • Edgar Lehr(corresponding author)
    ,
  • Juan C. Cusi
    ,
  • Maura I. Fernandez
    ,
  • Ricardo J. Vera
    ,
  • Alessandro Catenazzi
*Corresponding author for this work
  • ,
  • Museo de Historia Natural, Lima
    ,
  • Centro de Ornitología y Biodiversidad, Lima
    ,
  • Florida International University
    ,
  • Instituto Peruano de Herpetología
Scholarship:
Journal Article
Article
Peer-review

Abstract

We describe a new snake species of the genus Tachymenoides from the scientifically unexplored southern sector of the Otishi National Park in Peru (Region Junín). The single adult male specimen with a total length of 407 mm was obtained in the Pantano la Esperanza swamp of a puna valley at 3248 m a.s.l. The new species has smooth dorsal scales without apical pits in 19/17/15 series, 1 preocular, 2 postoculars, 1 loreal, undivided nasal scale, 2+3 temporals, 139 ventrals, 55 subcaudals, and a divided cloacal scale. In life, the dorsum is pale yellowish brown with scattered black blotches that form a paravertebral stripe (one scale wide) on each side at the posterior half of the body. The flanks are black ventrolaterally (2–3 scales high), followed at the posterior half of the body by a pale yellowish-brown longitudinal stripe of two scales width, bordered dorso-laterally by the black paravertebral stripe. The throat and first 60 mm of the ventral body are pale yellowish tan with black flecks, and a ventrolateral black stripe on each side of the same length, the remaining venter and tail entirely black. The head has dorsally a black stripe from the posterior margins of the postoculars extending over the outside margins of the rostrals over the head scales (2–3 scales in width) and narrowing to 1 scale width on the neck region before ending; laterally, the head has black flecks on the supralabials, and a black stripe extending from postoculars diagonally over parietals over posterior su-pralabials to the corner of the jaw. The iris is copper with a vertical pupil. The type locality of Proctoporus titans is corrected.

Scholarship

Output type

Scholarship:
Journal Article
Article
Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 199-206 (8 pages)

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Salamandra (Volume 59, Issue 3)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 2023

Publication status

Published - 2023

ISSN

0036-3375

Publication IDs

  • Scopus: 85168463347

Funding Details

We thank C. Aguilar (MUSM, Lima) for cataloguing and loan-ing our collected specimen, and for allowing work at MUSM. EL thanks R. Jairam and G. Landburg for accessing the her-petological collection (NZCS, Paramaribo). R. Jairam kindly provided feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank G. Köhler (SMF, Frankfurt) for photos and information of Tachymenoides affinis and L. Mogk for measurements. J. Moravec and M. Lundberg kindly commented on skin folds in snakes. We thank the Otishi National Park director, Ing. C. A. Barrientos Allca, for granting us research permits and his support during our expedition. Otishi National Park specialist K. Meza Villacorta kindly helped with the research permit pro-posal. We thank Otishi National Park Guard M. A. Mayta for his help and companionship during the expeditions. A grant from Illinois Wesleyan University supported the fieldwork of EL. The IA-CUC Committee (institutional animal care and use committee) of Illinois Wesleyan University approved this study (Protocol 19-011) on 5 November 2019, and the Ministerio del Ambiente, Lima, Peru, granted research permits (N° 002-2021-SERNANP-JPNO). We thank an anonymous reviewer and P. Wagner for their help-ful comments that improved our manuscript. We thank C. Aguilar (MUSM, Lima) for cataloguing and loaning our collected specimen, and for allowing work at MUSM. EL thanks R. Jairam and G. Landburg for accessing the herpetological collection (NZCS, Paramaribo). R. Jairam kindly provided feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. We thank G. Köhler (SMF, Frankfurt) for photos and information of Tachymenoides affinis and L. Mogk for measurements. J. Moravec and M. Lundberg kindly commented on skin folds in snakes. We thank the Otishi National Park director, Ing. C. A. Barrientos Allca, for granting us research permits and his support during our expedition. Otishi National Park specialist K. Meza Villacorta kindly helped with the research permit proposal. We thank Otishi National Park Guard M. A. Mayta for his help and companionship during the expeditions. A grant from Illinois Wesleyan University supported the fieldwork of EL. The IA-CUC Committee (institutional animal care and use committee) of Illinois Wesleyan University approved this study (Protocol 19-011) on 5 November 2019, and the Ministerio del Ambiente, Lima, Peru, granted research permits (N° 002-2021-SERNANP-JPNO). We thank an anonymous reviewer and P. Wagner for their helpful comments that improved our manuscript.
FundersFunding number
IA-CUC
-
Ministerio del Ambiente
002-2021-SERNANP-JPNO
IWU-