A new vine snake (Reptilia, Colubridae, Oxybelis) from Peru and redescription of O. acuminatus

By

Jadin, Robert C.
Jowers, Michael J
Orlofske, Sarah A.
Duellman, William E. (William Edward), 1930-
Blair, Christopher
Murphy, John C., 1947-

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2021-1-14

Original Publication

Evolutionary systematics

Volume

5

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

1--12

Subjects

Amazon , Conservation , Inkaterra , Morphology , new species , Serpentes , South America , Squamata , systematics , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Hamburg Centrum für Naturkunde (CeNak) 2017-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/evolsyst.5.60626

 

Abstract

The Brown Vine Snake,Oxybelis aeneus, was until recently considered a single species, distributed from southern Arizona through the Neotropics into southeastern Brazil. However, newly conducted research restructured the species with a substantial taxonomic revision, recognizing five additional taxa (i.e.O. koehleri,O. microphthalmus,O. potosiensis,O. rutherfordi,O. vittatus) in this species complex. This revision focused on populations in North America, Central America, and northern South America while neglecting the southern portion of its distribution. Here, we examine the taxonomic history of the complex and use it along with specimen data to resurrectO. acuminatusfrom southeastern Brazil. Finally, we describe a new species from the Peruvian Amazon based on morphological characters. This work increases the species diversity of theO. aeneuscomplex to eight, and we expect further increases in biodiversity discoveries with continued exploration of the New World vine snakes.