Herpetology Notes, volume 13: 905-906 (2020) (published online on 16 November 2020)

First record of Aspronema dorsivittatum (Cope, 1862) in Pozo Colorado, Paraguay (: Scincidae)

Nicolas Martínez1,2,*, Frederick Bauer1,2,3, Viviana Espinola1, and Thomas Goossen2

Aspronema dorsivittatum (Cope, 1862) is a small “Ruta Transchaco”), carried out between October 2017 lizard, up to 84 mm snout-vent length according to and December 2019. These two events were recorded at Vrcibradic and Rocha (2011), easily recognisable by the Wet Chaco ecoregion, in areas with a predominance having a dark middorsal stripe with two lateral white of palm groves, grasslands, wetlands and forests. stripes at each side of the body. The species is distributed in southern , throughout Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Brazil (Peters and Donoso-Barros, 1970; Cei, 1993; Carreira et al., 2005; Cabrera, 2009; Hedges and Conn, 2012). In Paraguay it can be found in the Wet Chaco, Cerrado, Atlantic Forest, and Mesopotamian Grasslands ecoregions (Cacciali et al., 2016). Asproema dorsivittatum inhabits exclusively grass fields and has diurnal habits, it is viviparous and its diet is based on arthropods (Carreira and Maneyro, 2013). Two specimens of Aspronema dorsivittatum (Fig. 1), were collected at the locality of Pozo Colorado, department of Presidente Hayes on the 14th of May 2018 (23.6203º S, 58.7180º W; datum WGS 84; 141 Figure 1. Dorsal view of Aspronema dorsivittatum MNHNP m elevation) and on the 16th of July 2018 (24.3430º 13.171 (snout-vent length: 72,7 mm; tail length: 6.4 mm; both S, 58.1825º W; datum WGS 84; 75 m elevation) measured with a calliper with 0.1 mm precision). respectively (Fig. 2), and were deposited in the herpetological collection of the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del Paraguay (MNHNP 13.171 and MNHNP 13.172). The lizards were spotted through a wildlife roadkill monitoring project on the national route No. 9 “Dr. Carlos Antonio López” (widely known as

1 Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Asunción, San Lorenzo 1031, Paraguay. 2 Museo Nacional de Historia Natural del Paraguay, Ministerio del Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible del Paraguay, San Lorenzo 2169, Paraguay. 3 Departament de Biologia Evolutiva, Ecologia i Ciències Ambientals, Facultat de Biología, Universitat de Barcelona, Figure 2. Known distribution of Aspronema dorsivittatum in Barcelona 08014, Spain. Paraguay. White circles represent previously known records; * Corresponding author. E-mail: red circle represents the new record documented in this study. [email protected] Orange polygon represents the locality of Pozo Colorado. 906 Nicolas Martínez et al.

In this work we report the first record of A. dorsivittatum for Pozo Colorado, Presidente Hayes Department. Our contribution extends the geographical distribution in 101 Km to the north of the closest record previously known for the locality of Villa Hayes.

Acknowledgements. Special thanks to Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología - CONACYT, for the co-financing with resources from the FEEI of the PINV 15-802 project “Evaluación del impacto por atropellamiento de fauna de la Ruta Nº 9 Dr. Carlos Antonio López (Transchaco)”. NM and FB acknowledge the support of the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (COANCYT) through the PRONII program.

References

Cabrera, M.R. (2009): Lagartos del centro de la Argentina. Cordoba, Argentina, Taller General de Imprenta. Cacciali, P., Scott, N.J., Aquino, A.L., Fitzgerald, L.A., Smith, P. (2016): The of Paraguay: literature, distribution and an annotated taxonomic checklist. Special Publication of the Museum of Southwestern Biology 11: 1–373. Carreira, S., Maneyro, R. (2013): Guía de Reptiles del Uruguay. Uruguay, Ediciones de La Fuga. Carreira, S., Meneghel, M., Achaval, F. (2005): Reptiles de Uruguay. Montevideo, Uruguay, Universidad de la República. Cei, J.M. (1993). Reptiles del noroeste, nordeste y este de la Argentina. Museo Regionale Scienze Naturale di Torino, Monografie 14: 1–949. Hedges, S.B., Conn, C.E. (2012): A new fauna from islands (Squamata, Mabuyidae, Mabuyinae). Zootaxa 3288: 1–244. Peters, J. A., Donoso-Barros, R. (1970): Catalogue of the Neotropical Squamata. Part II. Lizards and Amphisbaenians. Bulletin of United States National Museum 297: 1– 293. Vrcibradic, D., Rocha, C.F.D. (2011): An overview of female reproductive traits in South American (Squamata, Scincidae), with emphasis on brood size and its correlates. Journal of Natural History, 45: 813–825.

Accepted by Pedro Pinna