Epictia goudotii (DUMÉRIL & BIBRON, 1844)
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Epictia goudotii
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| Higher Taxa | Leptotyphlopidae, Epictinae, Epictini, Typhlopoidea, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Southern Caribbean Threadsnake, Black Blind Snake |
| Synonym | Stenostoma Goudotii DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1844: 330 Stenostomati goudoti — TSCHUDI 1845: 163. Stenostoma goudoti — TSCHUDI 1846: 47 Stenostoma goudotii — DUMÉRIL & BIBRON 1854 Stenostoma Goudoti — JAN 1861 Stenostoma godouti (sic) — JAN 1861: 188 Stenostoma goudottii — COPE 1876 (error typographicus) Glauconia goudotii — BOULENGER 1893: 64 Glauconia albifrons — BOULENGER 1893: 63 (part) Glauconia goudoti — WERNER 1917: 203 Leptotyphlops goudotii — AMARAL 1929: 139 Leptotyphlops albifrons — BRONGERSMA 1940: 117 Leptotyphlops goudoti —TAYLOR 1940: 540 Leptotyphlops albifrons albifrons — ROZE 1952: 156 Leptotyphlops albifrons goudotti (sic) — ROZE 1952: 156 Leptotyphlops albifrons margaritae ROZE 1952: 154 Leptotyphlops goudotii goudotii — PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970: 169 Stenostoma albifrons — SAVAGE 1970: 279. Leptotyphlops goudotti goudotti (sic) — LANCINI 1979: 170 Leptotyphlops margaritae — HUBER et al., 1986: 7–8. Leptotyphlops goudotti (sic) — VILLA et al., 1988: 85 (part) Leptotyphlops goudoti goudoti — SMITH & SMITH, 1993: 591 Stenostoma phenops — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 30–31. Leptotyphlops albifrons magnamaculata — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops albifrons ater — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops ater — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops bakewelli — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops gadowi — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops goudotii ater — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops goudotii bakewelli — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops goudotii goudotii — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops goudotii magnamaculatus — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops goudotii phenops — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops magnamaculata — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops phenops — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31 Leptotyphlops phenops bakewelli — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops phenops phenops — MCDIARMID et al., 1999: 31. Leptotyphlops goudoti — SCHWARTZ & HENDERSON 1991: 619 Leptotyphlops goudotii — MCDIARMID, CAMPBELL & TOURÉ 1999: 30 Epictia goudotii — ADALSTEINSSON et al. 2009 Epictia goudotti (sic) — UGUETO & RIVAS 2010: 333 Tricheilostoma goudotii — MEDINA-RANGEL 2011: 963. Epictia albifrons — POWELL et al., 2011: 83. Leptothyphlops (sic) sp. — ROMERO-PÉREZ, 2011: 126 (two col. photos). Epictia goudotii goudotii — VALENCIA, 2012: 8. Crishagenus goudotii — HOSER 2012: 34. Epictia goudoti — MUMAW et al., 2015: 294 Epictia albifrons — BARRIO-AMORÓS & ORTIZ 2015: 88. Epictia goudotii — WALLACH et al. 2014: 277 Epictia goudotii — MCCRANIE & HEDGES 2016 |
| Distribution | Colombia (Atlántico, Cesar, Cundinamarca, La Guajira, Magdalena, Meta, Santander, Tolima, and Isla Salamanca, elevation 0–1,280 m), Venezuela (Anzoátegui, Aragua, Carabobo, Distrito Federal, Falcón, Lara, Monagas, Nueva Esparta: Isla Margarita, Portuguesa, Sucre, Vargas, and Yaracuy, elevation 0–800 m); Netherlands Antilles (Bonaire, elevation 0–240 m) Type locality: “la vallée de la Magdeleine, à la Nouvelle-Grenade” [= lower Río Magdalena Valley, Departamento de Magdalena, Colombia, ca. 9–11°N, 74–75°W, elevation ca. 25–100 m asl]. |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Holotype: MNHN-RA 1068 |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis. Epictia goudotii is distinguished from all congeners by the following combination of characters: snout truncate in dorsal and ventral view, rounded slightly acuminate in lateral view; supraocular present, not in contact with first supralabial; supraocular abruptly longer than frontal; rostral scale triangular in dorsal view; first supralabial very short and not reaching eye level; ocular hexagonal with straight shape at the eye level; base of ocular scale expanded; temporal indistinct; fused caudals absent; interoccipital indistinct from dorsal scales; two supralabials (1+1); four infralabials; 227–260 middorsal scales; 213–234 midventral scales; 12–16 subcaudal scales; 10 scales around the middle of tail; rostral white pigmented as apical spine or brownish as head coloration; seven dorsal scale rows with dark brown to brown center and lighter border forming longitudinal zig-zag lines; seven ventral scale rows uniformly brown. |
| Comment | Synonymy: after Wallach 2016. See this paper for more complete chresonomy and references. Mumaw et al. (2016) removed Stenostoma fallax Peters from the synonymy of E. goudotii and recognized E. fallax as the name for the population occurring in northern Venezuela. Wallach 2016: 315 agrees with this assessment; however, he had only one specimen for his analysis and no molecular analysis seems to have been done. Subspecies: Leptotyphlops goudotii ater has been revalidated and elevated to species status by SAVAGE 2002. L. g. bakewelli and L. g. phenops also have been elevated to full species status. Distribution: Not in Central America, including Mexico (Hidalgo, Oaxaca, Tamaulipas), Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama (Wallach 2016, MATA-SILVA et al. 2015). See map in MCCRANIE & HEDGES 2016: Fig. 4. Epictia goudotii previously was considered to inhabit southern Mexico; Central America, including Panama (Smith, 1958b); northern South America, including Colombia, Venezuela, and Trinidad; the offshore islands of Cozumel (Mexico); the Bay Islands [Barbareta, Guanaja, Roatán, and Utila], Cayos Cochinos [Cayo Cochino Grande, Cayo Cochino Pequeño], and Swan Islands [Cisne] (Honduras); Bonaire (Netherlands Antilles); San Andrés and Providencia (Colombia); and Margarita (Venezuela) (Peters et al., 1970; Hahn, 1980; McDiarmid et al., 1999). This species also was reported from Antigua, Grenada, and Watling’s Island in the Caribbean (Barbour, 1930), but these records have been discounted (Powell and Henderson, 2012), and a record for the Suma Islands (Hahn, 1980; McDiarmid et al., 1999) that likely refers to the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas, as once they were called Yumey and Suma (www.bahamas.com/islands/exumas), also is not substantiated. Whether the range of E. goudotii extends to include Trinidad remains to be seen (Murphy, 1997; Boos, 2001), but considering the proximity to the mainland and the short time span since the sea level rise separated Trinidad from Venezuela, E. goudotii conceivably could be present (Wallach 2016: 313). Habitat: In Colombia, Epictia goudotii occurs in shrubland and riverside woodland (Montero-Arias and Quintero-Corzo, 2015). In Venezuela, it inhabits tropical thorny mountains (Rivas-Fuenmayor and Oliveros, 1997), pine savanna (Suárez et al., 2002), and deciduous and semi-deciduous forests on Isla de Margarita (Rivas- Fuenmayor et al., 2005, Wallach 2016: 313). |
| Etymology | This patronym is named after the French explorer and naturalist Justin-Marie Goudot, who collected the holotype. From 1822 to 1842, he was a collector in Colombia (at that time known as New Granada) for the Paris Natural History Museum (MNHN). |
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