Title
A new species of Bothrops (Serpentes: Viperidae: Crotalinae) from Pampas del Heath, southeastern Peru, with comments on the systematics of the Bothrops neuwiedi species group
Date Issued
2019
Access level
restricted access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Carrasco P.A.
Grazziotin F.G.
Koch C.
Antonio Ochoa J.
Scrocchi G.J.
Leynaud G.C.
Publisher(s)
Magnolia Press
Abstract
We describe a new species of pitviper of the genus Bothrops from the Peruvian Pampas del Heath, in the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park. Pampas del Heath is an area of seasonally flooded savannas and a northwestern extension of the Gran Chaco Boliviano-Paraguayo. The new species is easily distinguished from its congeners by the exclusive combination of dorsal color pattern of body consisting of small C-shaped blotches, postocular stripe originating posteriorly to the eye, covering posterior supralabials, dorsum of the head with paired markings arranged symmetrically, venter cream heavily speckled with brown, prelacunal scale discrete in contact with second supralabial, three to five prefoveals, subfoveal single usually present, postfoveals absent to two, canthals two, seven intersupraoculars, one or two suboculars, two or three postoculars, seven or eight supralabials, nine to eleven infralabials, 26-27 interrictals, 23-25 middorsal scales, 172 ventrals in the female and 169-173 in males, 45 subcaudals in the female and 50 in males. We performed separate and combined phylogenetic analyses based on morphology and five mitochondrial genes and recovered the new species as a member of the Bothrops neuwiedi species group. All lineages of this clade inhabit the South American dry diagonal. This novel species of pitviper increases the known diversity of the genus Bothrops and adds to the number of described taxa from the unique and scarcely known ecosystem of Pampas del Heath. Copyright © 2019 Magnolia Press
Start page
301
End page
344
Volume
4565
Issue
3
Number
13
Language
English
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85062850955
PubMed ID
Source
Zootaxa
ISSN of the container
1175-5326
Sponsor(s)
Our results are conclusive regarding the membership of Bothrops sonene to the monophyletic B. neuwiedi species group. Most of the analyses we performed recovered the new species in a basal position to a clade that included Bothrops diporus, B. pauloensis, B. pubescens, B. aff. diporus and B. aff. pubescens, thus belonging to the southwest clade identified by Machado et al. (2014). This position for Bothrops sonene was supported by both molecular and morphological characters and high branch support values. The different position recovered by morphological-only analyses was apparently given by some homoplasy and was unsupported by jackknife and bootstrap values.
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