Herpetology Notes, volume 14: 555-556 (2021) (published online on 21 March 2021)

Discovery of Phisalixella variabilis (Boulenger, 1896) on Nosy Be, Madagascar, confirms an old and dubious record (Squamata: Lamprophiidae)

Costanza Piccoli1,*, Fanomezana Mihaja Ratsoavina2, and Angelica Crottini1,3

Phisalixella variabilis (Boulenger, 1896) is a snake in pardalis; Glaw and Vences, 2007). Although it is has the lamprophiid subfamily Pseudoxyrhophiinae and an been reported from the dry and Sambirano forests of endemic species to Madagascar. It belongs to a group northwestern Madagascar, little is known about the that also includes P. tulearensis (Domergue, 1995) distribution and life history of this Endangered (EN) and P. arctifasciata (Duméril et al., 1854), considering snake (Vences et al., 2011). that P. iarakaensis (Domergue, 1995) was recently Phisalixella variabilis is morphologically very synonymized with P. arctifasciata (Burbrink et al., similar to both P. arctifasciata (distributed in eastern 2019). The diagnostic characters of these snakes are Madagascar) and P. tulearensis, a species recently mainly based on scale counts and pholidosis (Glaw and resurrected from the synonymy of P. variabilis (Nagy Vences, 2007; Nagy et al., 2010). et al., 2010). The species status of P. tulearensis is still Phisalixella variabilis is a nocturnal and arboreal debated, with some authors (e.g., Wallach et al., 2014) snake with a slender and elongated body of up to 150 preferring to maintain P. tulearensis as a synonym of P. cm in total length, and with a relatively long tail. The variabilis. However, it is clear that there are at least two head is broad and distinct from the neck, it has large molecular lineages of Phisalixella in the western part of eyes with vertical elliptical pupils and a reddish iris. Madagascar (Nagy et al., 2010; Burbink et al., 2019), The number of dorsal scales at midbody is 23 or 25, with P. tulearensis currently restricted to the localities the number of ventrals is known to vary from 244–264, between Toliara and Ankarafantsika. The collection and the number of subcaudals (all undivided) varies site of the syntypes of P. variabilis is uncertain, since from 151–166 (Vences et al., 2004). The number of it was described from “Madagascar”. However, the supralabial scales is 8 or 9 (with the 4th and 5th touching species was recently redefined by Nagy et al. (2010) as the eye) and there is a single loreal scale. The anal plate distributed in the north of the country, with one dubious can be divided or undivided. Body coloration varies record (MNHN 1950.371) purportedly from the island from yellowish to beige with a large number (105–132) of Nosy Be (Vences et al., 2004). This historical record of less distinct dark crossbands along the body and tail was initially reported as Lycodryas arctifasciatus by (Vences et al., 2004). The diet of this opisthoglyphous Andreone et al. (2003) and later as Stenophis tulearensis species includes other arboreal reptiles (e.g., Furcifer by Vences et al. (2004). Specimen MNHN 1950.371 has 23 dorsals, 246 ventrals, and 153 subcaudals, corresponding to scale counts of P. variabilis, but the skull was unavailable, colour has faded, and it is generally in a bad state of preservation (Andreone et al., 1 CIBIO/InBio, Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e 2003; Vences et al., 2004). Recursos Genéticos, Campus 8 Agrario de Vairão, 4485-661 During a herpetological survey on Nosy Be Island in Vairão, Portugal November 2009, we visited the periphery of Lokobe 2 Mention Zoologie et Biodiversité Animale, Faculté des Nature Special Reserve (13.4093°S, 48.3049°E, Sciences, Université d’Antananarivo, BP 906, Antananarivo 101, Madagascar elevation 26 m). A specimen of Phisalixella was 3 Departamento de Biologia, Faculdade de Ciências da encountered during the night of 12 November around Universidade do Porto, R. Campo Alegre, s/n, 4169-007 22:00 h, as it moved in tree branches about 1 m above Porto, Portugal ground. We captured and photographed the specimen * Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] with a digital camera to document its colouration © 2021 by Herpetology Notes. Open Access by CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. (Fig. 1), and we collected a tissue sample from the tail 556 Costanza Piccoli et al.

Madagascar. Systematic Biology 68: 918–936. Cocca, W., Rosa, G.M., Andreone, F., Aprea, G., Eusebio Bergò, P., Mattioli, F., et al. (2018): The herpetofauna (Amphibia, Crocodylia, Squamata, Testudines) of the Isalo Massif, southwest Madagascar: combining morphological, molecular and museum data. Salamandra 54: 178–200. Glaw, F., Vences, M. (2007): A Fieldguide to the Amphibians and Reptiles of Madagascar. Third Edition. Köln (Cologne), Germany, Vences & Glaw Verlags GbR. Hall, T.A. (1999): BioEdit: a user-friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symposium Series 41: 95–98. Nagy, Z.T., Glaw, F., Vences, M. (2010): Systematics of the snake genera Stenophis and Lycodryas from Madagascar and the Comoros. Zoologica Scripta 39: 426–435. Figure 1. Specimen of Phisalixella variabilis from Nosy Be Nagy, Z.T., Sonet, G., Glaw, F., Vences, M. (2012): First large Island, Madagascar. Photo by Angelica Crottini. scale DNA barcoding assessment of reptiles in the biodiversity hotspot of Madagascar, based on newly designed COI primers. PLoS One 7: e34506. tip. The tissue sample was stored in 99% ethanol for Vences, M., Glaw, F., Mercurio, V., Andreone, F. (2004): Review of molecular analyses. No scale counts were taken from the Malagasy tree snakes of the genus Stenophis (Colubridae). Salamandra 40: 161–179. the live specimen. Vences, M., Glaw, F., Rakotondravony, H. (2011): Phisalixella We amplified a fragment of ca. 650 bp of the variabilis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011: cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene using the primers e.T172802A6921071. listed in Nagy et al. (2012) and following the laboratory Wallach, V., Williams, K.L., Boundy, J. (2014): Snakes of the procedures described in Cocca et al. (2018). The World: a Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species. Boca Raton, chromatogram was checked, and the sequence was Florida, USA, Taylor and Francis, CRC Press. manually edited using the sequence alignment editor of BIOEDIT (v.7.2.0; Hall, 1999). The corrected sequence was compared to GenBank sequences using the BLAST algorithm. This sequence is almost identical to the sequence of specimen ZSM 887⁄2003 collected at Ankarana and identified as P. variabilis based on morphological features (Nagy et al., 2010). The sequence has been deposited in GenBank (accession number MW509740). Previous herpetological surveys in the island of Nosy Be failed to confirm the occurrence of this species (Andreone et al., 2003). This study confirms the dubious record of this species for Nosy Be and argues for the importance of field studies to uncover the biodiversity of Madagascar, also in the case of fairly well-surveyed sites such as Nosy Be.

References

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