A Beaked Wormsnake, Grypotyphlops Acutus

WWW.IRCF.ORG/REPTILESANDAMPHIBIANSJOURNALTABLE OF CONTENTS IRCF REPTILES & IRCFAMPHIBIANS REPTILES • VOL 15,& NAMPHIBIANSO 4 • DEC 2008 •189 25(2):132–133 • AUG 2018

IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS CONSERVATION AND NATURAL HISTORY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FEATURE ARTICLES A . BeakedChasing Bullsnakes (Pituophis cateniferWormsnake, sayi) in Wisconsin: Grypotyphlops On the Road to Understanding the Ecology and Conservation of the Midwest’s Giant Serpent ...... Joshua M. Kapfer 190 . acutusThe Shared History of Treeboas (Duméril (Corallus grenadensis) and Humans & on Grenada: Bibron 1844), A Hypothetical Excursion ...... Robert W. Henderson 198 inRESEARCH the ARTICLESSathyamangalam Tiger Reserve . The Texas Horned Lizard in Central and Western Texas ...... Emily Henry, Jason Brewer, Krista Mougey, and Gad Perry 204 . The Knight Anole (Anolis equestris) in Florida ...... ofBrian J. Camposano,Southern Kenneth L. Krysko, Kevin M. Enge,India Ellen M. Donlan, and Michael Granatosky 212

CONSERVATION ALERTPandi Karthik1 and Debaprasad Sengupta2 . World’s Mammals in Crisis ...... 220 1 Deptartment of Zoology. More and Than Wildlife Mammals Biology, ...... A.V.C. College (Autonomous), Mannampandal – 609305, Tamil...... Nadu, India (karthikwild [email protected]) . The “Dow Jones 2Index”Wildlife of Biodiversity Institute of ...... India, Chandrabani, Dehradun – 248001, Uttarakhand, India ...... 225

HUSBANDRY . Captive Care of the Central Netted Dragon ...... Shannon Plummer 226

he Beaked WormsnakePROFILE (Grypotyphlops acutus), one of the Pyron and Wallach (2014) considered G. acutus to be rare Tlargest Asian wormsnakes. Kraig Adler: A Lifetime(e.g., Promoting Whitaker Herpetology and ...... Captain and unusual, although Michaelthe species L. Treglia has234 been categorized as 2004; Dasgupta et al. 2009), is endemic to peninsular India. being of Least Concern on the IUCN Red List (Srinivasalu et COMMENTARY These snakes can readily be distinguished, even by an ama- al. 2013). We suggest that this discrepancy is a consequence . The Turtles Have Been Watching Me ...... Eric Gangloff 238 teur, from all other Indian scolecophidians due to their large of Srinivasalu et al. (2013) relying heavily on the earlier litera- conical bodies and BOOKdistinctive REVIEW head profiles (e.g., Duméril and ture when, in fact, recent surveys in the known range of the . Threatened Amphibians of the World edited by S.N. Stuart, M. Hoffmann, J.S. Chanson, N.A. Cox, Bibron 1844; Smith 1943;R. Berridge, Wallach P. Ramani, 1994). and B.E. The Young biology ...... and species have only rarely encountered Robert Powell 243this species. population trends of typhlopid snakes, including G. acutus, At 1230 h on 16 March 2017, during a carnivore-sign are little known (e.g., CONSERVATION Srinivasalu etRESEARCH al. 2013; REPORTS: Hedges Summaries et al. of Publishedsurvey Conservation conducted Research Reports by the ...... World Wildlife 245 Fund, India, we  NATURAL HISTORY RESEARCH REPORTS: Summaries of Published Reports on Natural History ...... 247 2014), which is largely NEWBRIEFS attributable ...... to their fossorial habits. encountered an...... adult Beaked Wormsnake 248 (Fig. 1) beneath Wallach (1994), EDITORIAL Dasgupta INFORMATION et al. (2009), ...... Ingle (2011), a rock in Kallampalayam Beat...... in the 251 Sathyamangalam Tiger Nitin et al. (2012), BhubathyFOCUS ON CONSERVATIONand Sathishkumar: A Project (2013), You Can and Support ...... Reserve (11°34'N, 76°59'E; Fig. 2). 252 We did not collect the

Front Cover. Shannon Plummer. Back Cover. Michael Kern Totat et velleseque audant mo Totat et velleseque audant mo estibus inveliquo velique rerchil estibus inveliquo velique rerchil erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus aut dolor apicto invere pe dolum aut dolor apicto invere pe dolum fugiatis maionsequat eumque fugiatis maionsequat eumque moditia erere nonsedis ma sectiatur moditia erere nonsedis ma sectia- ma derrovitae voluptam, as quos tur ma derrovitae voluptam, as accullabo.

Fig. 1. The adult Beaked Wormsnake (Grypotyphlops acutus) from the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Southern India. Photograph by Ashay Khandekar.

Fig. 2. A locality of a Beaked Wormsnake (Grypotyphlops acutus) in the Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Southern India. snake, which was identified on the basis of our experience 4953–4961. with the species and the existing literature (e.g., Smith 1943; Duméril, A.M.C. and G. Bibron. 1844. Erpétologie Générale ou Histoire Naturelle Complète des Reptiles. Tome sixième. Librairie Encyclopédique de Roret, Paris. Whitaker and Captain 2004; Hedges et al. 2014). We took Dasgupta, G., R.K. Biswas, and, S. Raha. 2009. Checklist of the blind snakes photographs, measurements (SVL = 32.3 cm, TL = 0.6 cm), (Typhlopidae), pythons and boas (Boidae) of India. Records of the Zoological and recorded the location (11°34'26"N, 76°52'54"E; elev. Survey of India 109: 13–30. 391 m asl), microhabitat (open grass land), and macrohabitat Hedges, S.B., A.B. Marion, K.M. Lipp, J. Marin, and N. Vidal. 2014. A taxo- nomic framework for typhlopid snakes from the Caribbean and other regions (scrub-jungle). (Reptilia, Squamata). Caribbean Herpetology 49: 1–61. Due to the paucity of recent records, we believe that this Ingle, M. 2011. Herpetofauna of Naglok Region, Jashpur District, Chhattisgarh. species might well be in decline. Consequently, any con- Records of the Zoological Survey of India 111: 79–96. Pyron, R.A. and V. Wallach. 2014. Systematics of the blindsnakes (Serpentes: firmed locality records and information on natural history Scolecophidia: Typhlopoidea) based on molecular and morphological evi- and conservation threats are necessary to accurately evaluate dence. Zootaxa 3829: 1–81. its current conservation status. Srinivasulu, B., C. Srinivasalu, S.P. Vijayakumar, S.R. Ganesh, and M. Madala. 2013. Grypotyphlops acutus. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e.T172598A1349131 (http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/172598/0). Acknowledgements Smith, M.A. 1943. The Fauna of British India, Ceylon and Burma, including the We thank Boominathan and Krishnakumar, World Wildlife Whole of the Indo-Chinese Region. Vol. III. Serpentes. Taylor and Francis, Fund, India, for granting internship opportunities; our col- London. Nitin, W., V. Awsare, S. Karangutkar, V. Wagh, B. Yengal, and S. Salvi. 2012. leagues Shaheer Ali, Tamil Iniyan, and Sanan D’Souza, Herpetofauna of Maharashtra Nature Park, Mumbai, Maharashtra (India). for assistance in the field; and the Sathyamanglam Forest World Journal of Environmental Biosciences 1: 90–99. Division and Ashay Khandekar for the photographs. Wallach, V. 1994. The status of the Indian endemic Typhlops acutus (Duméril & Bibron) and the identity of Typhlops psittacus Werner (Reptilia, Serpentes, Typhlopidae). Bulletin de l’lnstitut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique Literature Cited 64: 209–229. Bhubathy, S. and N. Sathishkumar. 2013. Status of reptiles in Meghamalai and its Whitaker, R. and A. Captain. 2004. Snakes of India, the Field Guide. Draco Books, environs, Western Ghats, Tamil Nadu, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 5: Chennai.

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