A century of waiting: description of a new Epictia Gray, 1845 (Serpentes: Leptotyphlopidae) based on specimens housed for more than 100 years in the collection of the Natural History Museum Vienna (NMW)

PeerJ

article

Claudia Koch¹  Angele Martins²  Silke Schweiger⁴ 

[1] Department of Herpetology;Departamento de Ciências Fisiológicas, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Universidade de Brasília;Departamento de Vertebrados;1st Zoological Department

关键词: Burrowing snakes;    Epictinae;    Thread snakes;    Fossorial snakes;    Slender blind snakes;    Systematics;    High resolution x-ray tomography;    Osteology;    Pholidosis;    Squamata;   

DOI  :  10.7717/peerj.7411

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Inra

【 摘 要 】

We describe a new species of Epictia based on eight specimens from Nicaragua collected and housed in the collection of the Natural History Museum Vienna for more than a century. The species differs from the congeners by the combination of external morphological characters: midtail scale rows 10; supralabials two, anterior one large and in broad contact with supraocular; infralabials four; subcaudals 14–19; middorsal scale rows 250–267; supraocular scales present; frontal scale distinct; striped dorsal color pattern with more or less triangular dark blotches on each scale; small white blotch in anterior part of dorsal surface of rostral present in five out of six specimens (two further specimens are lacking their heads); terminal spine and adjacent scales white. Eidonomic species separation from other Epictia spp. is also supported by a few qualitative and quantitative differences in vertebrae count and morphology. The new species is putatively assigned to the Epictia phenops species group based on external morphological characters and distribution.

【 授权许可】

CC BY