A century of waiting: description of a new Epictia Gray, 1845

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; sup...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2019-08, Vol.7, p.e7411
Main Authors: Koch, Claudia, Ma, Schweiger, Silke
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Museums
Snakes
Online Access:Get full text
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Description
Summary: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.
ISSN:2167-8359
2167-8359
DOI:10.7717/peerj.7411