Category: Zookeys

How did the guppy cross the ocean: An unexpected fish appears on a volcanic archipelago

While people tend to describe tropical oceanic islands as ‘paradises on Earth’ and associate them with calm beaches, transparent warm waters and marvellous landscapes, archipelagos are often the product of a fierce natural force – volcanoes which erupt at the bottom of the sea.

Because of their origin, these islands have never been connected to the mainland, thereby it is extremely difficult for species to cross the ocean and populate them.

One such species – the South American guppy (Poecilia vivipara) – is a small freshwater fish which looks nowhere equipped to cross the distance between the mainland and the Fernando de Noronha oceanic archipelago in Northeast Brazil.

Nevertheless, the research team of PhD student Waldir M. Berbel-Filho and his professor Dr. Sergio Lima from Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte recorded the species from a local mangrove on the island. The question that immediately sprang to the minds of the scientists was: ‘Where did the guppies come from and how did they get to Fernando de Noronha?’

To answer these questions, the scientists sequenced a gene of the guppies’ DNA to analyze potential signatures of the island colonization left in the fish DNA. As a result, they concluded that the isolated population was in fact closely related to the fish inhabiting the closest continental drainages.

However, this evidence was not enough to explain how the species turned up on the island in the first place. Was it natural colonization, or rather human introduction?

The most likely scenario, according to the team, leads back to about 60 years ago when the American military had their WWII bases positioned at both Fernando de Noronha and Natal – the closest continental city. Indeed, the soldiers suggested to bring guppies to the island in an attempt to control mosquito population (in this region, guppies are commonly placed in water reservoirs to eat mosquito larvae).

On the other hand, natural dispersion cannot be completely excluded. The biologists remind that, apart for their exuberant colours and shapes, the guppies are well known for their capacity to resist to a wide range of environmental conditions. It could be that a set of circumstances occurring together, such as a favourable sea current, physiological adaptation and a bit of luck, might have brought the guppies to the archipelago.

“Regardless of their means of transportation,” argue the authors, “this guppy population represents a valuable lesson on how small populations manage to colonize and thrive in isolated environments.”

“Despite being visited by thousands of people every year, some of the most intriguing secrets of tropical islands may still be hidden in the DNA of their inhabitants,” they conclude. “These ‘paradises on Earth’ are capable of simultaneously filling our hearts with beauty and our minds – with knowledge.”

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Original source:

Berbel-Filho WM, Barros-Neto LF, Dias RM, Mendes LF, Figueiredo CAA, Torres RA, Lima SMQ (2018) Poecilia vivipara Bloch & Schneider, 1801 (Cyprinodontiformes, Poeciliidae), a guppy in an oceanic archipelago: from where did it come? ZooKeys 746: 91-104. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.746.20960

ZooKeys Special: Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Myriapodology, Thailand

Contemporary myriapod research presented in July 2017 in Krabi, Thailand, comprises 13 research papers by 35 authors from across the world

For the third consecutive time, a special issue in the open access zoological journal ZooKeys is hosting a collection of the research findings presented at the International Congress of Myriapodology.

The contemporary research on myriapods – millipedes, centipedes and their relatives – presented at the 17th International Congress of Myriapodology, held in July 2017 in Krabi, Thailand, and organised by Prof. Somsak Panha, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, contains 13 novel research papers by 35 authors from ten countries, namely Austria, Australia, Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Russia, Taiwan and the UK.

A dedicated Editorial written by zoologists Prof. Pavel Stoev, National Museum of Natural History, Bulgaria, and Dr. Gregory Edgecombe, The Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom, is also published along the collection.

Amongst the research comprising the collection, there is a study using molecular phylogenetics to investigate the diversity and biogeography of the well-known European Black Pill Millipede, and the taxonomy of its subspecies and colour morphs.

Another paper describes the online platform VIRMISCO (Virtual Microscope Slide Collection), which allows its users to access an archive of microscope slides of important type specimens.

A total of nine new myriapod species from East Asia and Australia are also announced in the collection, including two papers by a team from Hengshui University, describing two previously unknown stone centipedes discovered in the leaf litter or under rocks in conifer forests in China.

“We are delighted to again have ZooKeys as the forum for publication of our Congress, this one being the first time the global community of myriapod researchers has met in Asia”, says co-editor Edgecombe, President of the Centre International de Myriapodologie.

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Read the full issue and order your paperback copy here.

Two new species of stone centipedes found hiding in larch forests in China

Scientists described two species of previously unknown stone centipedes from China. Now housed at the Hengshui University, China, where all members of the team work, the studied specimens were all collected in the leaf litter or under rocks in larch forests.

Having conducted their research across China, researchers Dr Sujian Pei, Yanmin Lu, Haipeng Liu, Dr Xiaojie Hou and Dr Huiqin Ma announced the two new species – Lithobius (Ezembius) tetraspinus and Hessebius luculentus – in two articles published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Stone centipedes are the species which belong to the order Lithobiomorpha. These centipedes are anamorphic, meaning that they grow additional pair of legs as they moult and develop additional body segments. By the time they are fully grown, these count 15 in total. Unlike earlier predecessors, stone centipedes do not have the compound eyes we know from insects. Instead, stone centipedes see through simple eyes, sometimes a group of simple eyes, or, if living exclusively underground, they might have no eyes at all.

One of the newly discovered species, Lithobius (Ezembius) tetraspinus, is recorded from Hami City, Xinjiang Autonomous Region, northwestern China. The studied specimens were collected from moderately moist larch forest habitats at altitude of 950 to 1000. There, the small predominantly brown centipedes, measuring no more than about 13 mm in body length, were hiding under rodeside stones and leaf litter.

The second previously unknown centipede, Hessebius luculentus, discovered in Shandan County, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is slightly larger – reaching up to 20 mm. Its colours are a mix of yellow and brown with the odd grey or red hue. While it has the same preference for relatively moist habitats, this species lives at greater altitude. It has been reported from forest floor at about 1400 m above sea level.

In both papers, the authors point out that while the myriapod fauna of China remains generally poorly known, even less attention has been given to the order of stone centipedes.

The research articles are included in the special issue “Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Myriapodology, Krabi, Thailand”. The congress, organised by Prof. Somsak Panha, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, was held in July 2017.

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Original source:

Pei S, Lu Y, Liu H, Hou X, Ma H (2018) Lithobius (Ezembius) tetraspinus, a new species of centipede from northwest China (Lithobiomorpha, Lithobiidae). In: Stoev P, Edgecombe GD (Eds) Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Myriapodology, Krabi, Thailand. ZooKeys 741: 203-217. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.741.19980

Ma H, Lu Y, Liu H, Hou X, Pei S (2018) Hessebius luculentus, a new species of the genus Hessebius Verhoeff, 1941 from China (Lithobiomorpha, Lithobiidae). In: Stoev P, Edgecombe GD (Eds) Proceedings of the 17th International Congress of Myriapodology, Krabi, Thailand. ZooKeys 741: 193-202. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.741.20061

Two new snout moth genera and three new species discovered in southern China

New members have joined the ranks of the snout moths – one of the largest groups within the insect order known formally as Lepidoptera, comprising all moths and butterflies.

Recently, taxonomists Dr. Mingqiang Wang, Dr. Fuqiang Chen, Prof. Chaodong Zhu and Prof. Chunsheng Wu of the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences described two genera and three species previously unknown to science discovered in southern China.

Their study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Having named one of the two new genera Androconia, the scientists acknowledge a peculiar characteristic feature in these moths. The name derives from androconium, which is a set of modified scales located on the forewing in males and used to produce odors attractive to females. Not only is this feature evident in the newly described genus, but it also amazes with its shape reminiscent of a tower. The genus currently hosts two species – both described in the present study.

The second new genus, named Arcanusa, is established based on a species already discovered back in 2003, however, misplaced in another genus. The third new species announced in the present paper is also assigned to this genus.

In conclusion, the authors note that given the latitude they discovered all of the studied moths, it is highly likely that more species belonging to the newly described genera are pending discovery in the adjacent countries – especially India.

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Original source:

Wang M, Chen F, Zhu C, Wu C (2017) Two new genera and three new species of Epipaschiinae Meyrick from China (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae). ZooKeys 722: 87-99. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.722.12362

Named after Stanley Kubrick, a new species of frog is a ‘clockwork orange’ of nature

Two new treefrog species were discovered in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil. Both had been previously misidentified as another superficially identical species.

Curiously, one of them received a name translating to ‘demon’ or ‘devil’. The second one was named in honor of famous American filmmaker Stanley Kubrick, because of his masterpiece A Clockwork Orange.

Having conducted analyses of genetic, morphologic, and bioacoustic data, scientists C. Daniel Rivadeneira, Dr. Pablo J. Venegas, and Dr. Santiago R. Ron concluded that the amphibians represented two previously unknown species that used to go by the name of the Sarayacu treefrog (Dendropsophus parviceps).

As a result of this research collaboration between Ecuador’s Catholic University (PUCE) and Peru’s Centro de Ornitología y Biodiversidad (CORBIDI), the treefrogs were recently described as new to science in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The scientists remind that, back in 1972, when Anthony Burgess explained the title of his famous novel A Clockwork Orange, he said: “I’ve implied the junction of the organic, the lively, the sweet – in other words, life, the orange – and the mechanical, the cold, the disciplined (…)”

“Without knowing, he was also giving a good metaphor to describe ecosystems,” comment the researchers. “Nature works as the interplay between life and its cold, mechanical, and disciplined physical matrix.”

Furthermore, both new frogs, scientifically listed as D. kubricki and D. kamagarini, are characterized by having a bright orange blotch on the shanks, reminiscent of the ‘orange pieces of nature’.

On the other hand, the species name kamagarini refers to ‘demon’ or ‘devil’, as per its translation from the Matsigenka language spoken in southeastern Peru. One of the characteristic features of the new species D. kamagarini are namely its horn-like protuberances on the upper eyelids.

Amphibians are important pieces in ecosystems as secondary consumers in food chains. They also play a significant role in decomposition and nutrient cycling.

Stanley Kubrick – arguably one of the most brilliant and influential film directors of all time – left an immemorial legacy in cinema. His masterpiece, A Clockwork Orange (1971), was based on Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novel of the same name.

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Original source:

Rivadeneira CD, Venegas PJ, Ron SR (2018) Species limits within the widespread Amazonian treefrog Dendropsophus parviceps with descriptions of two new species (Anura, Hylidae). ZooKeys 726: 25-77. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.726.13864

Spider eat spider: Scientists discover 18 new spider-hunting pelican spiders in Madagascar

In 1854, a curious-looking spider was found preserved in 50 million-year-old amber. With an elongated neck-like structure and long mouthparts that protruded from the “head” like an angled beak, the arachnid bore a striking resemblance to a tiny pelican. A few decades later when living pelican spiders were discovered in Madagascar, arachnologists learned that their behavior is as unusual as their appearance, but because these spiders live in remote parts of the world they remained largely unstudied–until recently.

At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, curator of arachnids and myriapods Hannah Wood has examined and analyzed hundreds of pelican spiders both in the field in Madagascar and through study of pelican spiders preserved in museum collections. Her analysis, focused on spiders of the Eriauchenius and Madagascarchaea genera, sorted the spiders she studied into 26 different species–18 of which have never before been described. Wood and colleague Nikolaj Scharff of the University of Copenhagen describe all 26 pelican spider species in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Zookeys.

Wood says pelican spiders are well known among arachnologists not only for their unusual appearance, but also for the way they use their long “necks” and jaw-like mouthparts to prey on other spiders. “These spiders attest to the unique biology that diversified in Madagascar,” she said.

Pelican spiders are active hunters, prowling the forest at night and following long silk draglines that lead them to their spider prey. When a pelican spider finds a victim, it swiftly reaches out and impales it on its long, fang-tipped “jaws,” or chelicerae. Then it holds the capture away from its body, keeping itself safe from potential counterattacks, until the victim dies.

Today’s pelican spiders are “living fossils,” Wood says–remarkably similar to species found preserved in the fossil record from as long as 165 million years ago. Because the living spiders were found after their ancestors had been uncovered in the fossil record and presumed extinct, they can be considered a “Lazarus” taxon. In addition to Madagascar, modern-day pelican spiders have been found in South Africa and Australia–a distribution pattern that suggests their ancestors were dispersed to these landmasses when the Earth’s supercontinent Pangaea began to break up around 175 million years ago.

Madagascar is home to vast numbers of plant and animal species that exist only on the island, but until recently, only a few species of pelican spiders had been documented there. In 2000, the California Academy of Sciences launched a massive arthropod inventory in Madagascar, collecting spiders, insects and other invertebrates from all over the island.

Wood used those collections, along with specimens from other museums and spiders that she collected during her own field work in Madagascar, to conduct her study. Her detailed observations and measurements of hundreds of specimens led to the identification of 18 new species–but Wood says there are almost certainly more to be discovered. As field workers continue to collect specimens across Madagascar, “I think there’s going to be a lot more species that haven’t yet been described or documented,” she said.

The spiders Wood personally collected, including holotypes (the exemplar specimens) for several of the new species, will join the U.S. National Entomological Collection at the Smithsonian, the second-largest insect collection in the world, where they will be preserved and accessible for further research by scientists across the globe.

All of the pelican spiders that Wood described live only in Madagascar, an island whose tremendous biodiversity is currently threatened by widespread deforestation. The new species add to scientists’ understanding of that biodiversity, and will help Wood investigate how pelican spiders’ unusual traits have evolved and diversified over time. They also highlight the case for conserving what remains of Madagascar’s forests and the biodiversity they contain, she says.

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Funding for this study was provided by the Danish National Research Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

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Original source:

Wood HM, Scharff N (2018) A review of the Madagascan pelican spiders of the genera Eriauchenius O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1881 and Madagascarchaea gen. n. (Araneae, Archaeidae). ZooKeys 727: 1-96. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.727.20222

Seven new spider species from Brazil named after 7 famous fictional spider characters

Several literary classics from the fantasy genre are further immortalised and linked together thanks to a Brazilian research team who named seven new spiders after them.

Spider characters from A Song of Ice and Fire, Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu and the children’s favourite Charlotte’s Web and Little Miss Spider each gave a name to a new small cave-dwelling six-eyed spider inhabiting northern Brazil.

Discovered in iron caves across the state of Pará, northern Brazil, the new species belong to the same Neotropical genus Ochyrocera. They are described in a new research article published in the open access journal ZooKeys by Dr Antonio Brescovit, Dr Igor Cizauskas and Leandro Mota – all affiliated with Instituto Butantan, Sao Paulo.

Interestingly, while all seven previously unknown species prefer staying in the shadows underground, none of them has the adaptations characteristic for exclusively cave-dwelling organisms, such as loss of pigmentation and reduced or missing eyes. They are classified as edaphic troglophile species, which means that they are capable of completing their life cycle away from sunlight, but are not bound to the deepest recesses. Often crawling near the surface, they can even be spotted outside the caves. To describe the species, the scientists collected about 2,000 adult specimens following a 5-year series of field collection trips.

The list of ‘fantasy’ spiders begins with Ochyrocera varys named after Lord Varys from George R. R. Martin’s book series A Song of Ice and Fire. Lord Varys is also known as the Spider because of his manipulative skills and ability to ‘weave’ and command his networks of eyes-and-ears across two continents.

The name of Ochyrocera atlachnacha refers to the Spider God Atlach-Nacha from the universe created by H. P. Lovecraft. Atlach-Nacha is a giant spider with a human-like face which lives in the caves beneath a mountain and spins a web believed to link the world with the Dreamlands.

Two species are named after spider characters from the classic works by J. R. R. Tolkien. Ochyrocera laracna is a species named after the well-known giant spider Laracna (Shelob in English) who attacks main characters Frodo and Sam on their way to Mordor in The Lord of the Rings’ second volume – The Two Towers.

On the other hand, the Brazilian spider’s sibling – Ochyrocera ungoliant – is linked to Laracna’s mother. Ungoliant appears in Tolkien’s book The Silmarillion, whose events take place prior to those of The Lord of the Rings’ second volume The Two Towers. According to the story, Ungoliant translates to Dark Spider in Elvish.

Another staple in the 20th-century fantasy literature, the Harry Potter series, written by J. K. Rowling, also enjoys the attention of the researchers. The species Ochyrocera aragogue is an explicit reference to the talking Aragog, who lives in the dark recesses of the Forbidden Forest. In the second volume of the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, he confronts Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

The authors do not fail to pay tribute to much less violent spiders known from popular children books. David Kirk’s Little Miss Spider inspires the name of Ochyrocera misspider. The character is remembered with her words: “We have to be good to bugs; all bugs.”

The Ochyrocera charlotte species refers to Charlotte, the spider from E. B. White’s classic Charlotte’s Web who befriends the main character – Wilbur the pig.

It is highly likely that there are many species and populations of this group of spiders yet to be discovered in the Neotropics, since the lack of previous studies in the region. However, the area and its biodiversity are impacted by mining.

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Original source:

Brescovit AD, Cizauskas I, Mota LP (2018) Seven new species of the spider genus Ochyrocera from caves in Floresta Nacional de Carajás, PA, Brazil (Araneae, Ochyroceratidae). ZooKeys 726: 87-130. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.726.19778

Three new species of zoantharians described from coral reefs across the Indo-Pacific

One of them was named after the president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau, in honour of his and the nation’s support to the authors and marine conservation

Three new species of zoantharians were discovered by researchers from the University of the Ryukyus and Kagoshima University, Japan, and the Palau International Coral Reef Center. Despite not being previously known, all three species were found widely across the Indo-Pacific, with at least two species found in the Red Sea, the Maldives, Palau, and southern Japan.

Zoantharians, or colonial anemones, include species popular in the pet trade such as Zoanthus or Palythoa, but the new species are all much more cryptic, living in marine caves, cracks, or at depths below most recreational SCUBA diving (>20 m). The research was published December 29, 2017, in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

The three new species belong to the genus Antipathozoanthus, which contains species that only live on top of black coral colonies. However, surprisingly, one of the new species does not live on black corals, but instead in narrow cracks in coral reefs.

“We think that the new species, Antipathozoanthus obscurus, has evolved away from needing to be on top of black corals to take advantage of the available space in coral reef cracks”, said lead researcher Hiroki Kise.

“This is yet another example of how much diversity is right underneath our noses, but we still know nothing about it.”

Coral reefs, which are widely threatened by rising temperatures from global warming, are generally believed to harbour very high numbers of species, including yet many undescribed or unknown species.

Amongst the other two new species is Antipathozoanthus remengesaui, named after the current president of Palau, Tommy Remengesau.

“Much of our work was based in Palau”, said senior author Dr. James Reimer, “and we wished to acknowledge the fantastic support we have received from the nation. Palau is considered at the forefront of marine conservation, and much of this is thanks to President Remengesau’s vision.”

While the new discoveries shed more light on our understanding of coral reef biodiversity, this work is far from done. In fact, the researchers themselves estimate they still have up to ten more zoantharian species to describe from the waters of Palau and Okinawa.

“Marine diversity of coral reefs is amazing, with new surprises all the time”, said Kise, “and biodiversity scientists still have a lot more work to do.”

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Original source:

Kise H, Fujii T, Masucci GD, Biondi P, Reimer JD (2017) Three new species and the molecular phylogeny of Antipathozoanthus from the Indo-Pacific Ocean (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia, Zoantharia). ZooKeys 725: 97-122. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.725.21006

A genus of European paper wasps revised for the first time using integrative taxonomy

The European and Mediterranean species of the paper wasp genus Polistes were recently revised by scientists at the SNSB-Zoologische Staatssammlung München (ZSM).

For the first time for this group scientists applied an integrative taxonomic approach which combines traditional morphological methods with modern DNA barcoding.

As a result, the researchers were able to identify a new species from Morocco. For this well-researched wasp group, this is an actual sensation.

The study is published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

The Munich researchers analysed more than 260 wasp specimens collected from across the study area with the help of DNA barcoding.

They managed to identify all species and determine their distribution. In addition, based on the genetic data, they were able to evaluate morphological characters for each species and created a completely new key for identification.

The wasps of the genus Polistes belong to the family Vespidae. The genus is represented by 17 species in Europe and the Mediterranean, with four species occurring in Germany. Within the genus, 13 species are social, with the queen overwintering and founding a new nest with up to 200 workers. Four species are parasitic and have no workers.

Although Polistes has been well-known in Central Europe for more than 200 years, knowledge of Mediterranean species has so far been scarce. Many species of the genus exhibit only subtle morphological differences and show high levels of colour variation, further complicating their identification.

An important result of this research is the separation of species of the Polistes gallicus species complex into three distinct species. Moreover, the genetic data led to the discovery of a new species, represented by a single specimen from the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco. This was an unexpected result for the researchers. The species was named Polistes maroccanus.

Another very surprising result was the discovery of high levels of genetic variation within Polistes dominula, a species commonly found in Central Europe, indicating the presence of up to three different and hitherto unrecognized species – a case requiring further investigation.

Integrative taxonomy is an approach that combines different scientific methods to reliably differentiate species. In particular, DNA barcoding has proven to be a useful technique for the identification of species and for the discovery of new species. The method allows to identify most species quickly and accurately, even those species that are difficult to identify using traditional methods based on morphological characters.

DNA barcoding uses a short gene fragment that differs in almost all species worldwide. The sequences are stored in an online database and can be used for identification. The method derives its name for being reminiscent of the barcodes similar to those found on products in supermarkets that allow quick and error-free identification at the checkout.

DNA barcoding is part of a global research initiative led by the Canadian scientist Paul Hebert from the University of Guelph. The ZSM is a project partner and involved in assembling DNA barcodes of the German animal species. In addition to ZSM researchers, scientists from Switzerland and the Netherlands contributed to the Polistes project.

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Original source:

Schmid-Egger C, van Achterberg K, Neumeyer R, Morinière J, Schmidt S (2017) Revision of the West Palaearctic Polistes Latreille, with the descriptions of two species – an integrative approach using morphology and DNA barcodes (Hymenoptera, Vespidae). ZooKeys 713: 53-112. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.713.11335

When lemons give you life: Herpetofauna adaptation to citrus orchards in Belize

Natural habitat areas exhibit similar abundances and diversity of herpetofauna as citrus orchards and reclaimed orchard forests in Stann Creek, Belize, reports a comparative study by researchers Russell Gray and Dr. Colin Strine of Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), Thailand.

The scientists utilized several drift-fence arrays equipped with double-funnel traps to monitor and compare reptile and amphibian communities in a lowland broadleaf forest, a lime orchard and a reclaimed citrus orchard at the Toucan Ridge Ecology and Education Society (TREES) field station. Their study was recently published in the open-access journal ZooKeys.

Often referred to as Central America’s “hidden gem” for its abundance of undisturbed rainforests and natural beauty, Belize has a long-standing record for vigorously protecting and maintaining their forested areas. However, just as in any other developing country, its primary sector is expanding with agricultural land clearings becoming more frequent with newly established properties.

Approximately midway through the study (June – September 2016), the site was hit by Hurricane Earl, a Category 1 hurricane. The hurricane-force winds altered the canopy cover significantly over the forested study sites, due to felled trees and broken branches.

Surprisingly enough, the herpetofauna remained relatively unchanged in the aftermath of Earl. The phenomenon revealed that not only were herpetofaunal communities lacking sensitivity to anthropogenic changes in the area, but also to extreme weather events, even though these had affected most of the standing vegetation.

Some notable observations occurred within three days of Hurricane Earl, according to Russell Gray:

“One of the trapping system was catching arboreal [tree climbing] snake species, like the cat-eyed snake and blunt-headed tree snake. This wasn’t only interesting because arboreal snakes were caught in terrestrial traps, but rather because they were never caught in our traps during the study up to this point.”

“Even more interesting is that they were caught exclusively in the manicured orchard area, which makes me wonder if they somehow predicted falling trees and fled to the only habitat without them. Some animals appear to forecast weather events due to sudden or drastic changes in environmental conditions. I wonder if this is a similar case.”

Amongst other notable scientific discoveries reported during the project were two new accounts of the Petén Centipede Snake (Tantilla hendersoni), one of which was the first documented male of the species. This secretive snake had only been documented once prior to the study and is the only endemic snake species to Belize.

Further noteworthy instances were two range extensions for relatively data deficient species – one for the Doflein’s Salamander (Bolitoglossa dofleini) and another for the Ringneck Coffee Snake (Ninia diademata).

Besides providing important data on herpetofauna assemblages in various disturbed and undisturbed habitats in Belize, the research identifies future conservation methods to be considered.

The study serves as new evidence that as long as agricultural areas remain surrounded with natural habitat buffers, they have little effect on herpetofaunal communities.

Replicates of this study are encouraged by the authors and can be utilized as a feasible and efficient way to monitor reptiles and amphibians in Belize.

Although Belize still preserves a considerable amount of intact forest cover, there are several on-going conservation concerns. Besides agricultural land clearings, there are constant struggles with xate poachers, or “Xateros”, on the Guatemalan border, as well as illegal logging activities and illegal off-season hunting.

Unfortunately, reptiles and amphibians have been understudied in comparison to other vertebrates and government action is rarely enforced on their conservation throughout the Neotropics.

A striking example of this relates to the only critically endangered reptile in Belize – the Hickatee turtle (Dermatemys mawii). Although the species is likely to become extinct, it is still traditionally collected for its culinary value, while its hunting is banned only in May.

In conclusion, the authors note that it is crucial to pay close attention to anthropogenic activity and the potential repercussions it may have on native species. With extensive and active efforts to study Mesoamerican herpetofauna, proper conservation efforts can be implemented and focused.

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Original Source:

Gray R, Strine CT (2017) Herpetofaunal assemblages of a lowland broadleaf forest, an overgrown orchard forest and a lime orchard in Stann Creek, Belize. ZooKeys 707: 131-165. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.707.14029