Preying Upon the Nonindigenous African Jewelfish

WWW.IRCF.ORG/REPTILESANDAMPHIBIANSJOURNALTABLE OF CONTENTS IRCF REPTILES & IRCF AMPHIBIANS REPTILES • VOL &15, AMPHIBIANS NO 4 • DEC 2008 • 18919(3):161–162 • SEPT 2012

IRCF REPTILES & AMPHIBIANS CONSERVATION AND NATURAL HISTORY

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FEATURE ARTICLES The. Chasing native Bullsnakes (Pituophis catenifer Florida sayi) in Wisconsin: Green Watersnake, On the Road to Understanding the Ecology and Conservation of the Midwest’s Giant Serpent ...... Joshua M. Kapfer 190 . The Shared History of Treeboas (Corallus grenadensis) and Humans on Grenada: A HypotheticalNerodia Excursion ...... floridana (Goff 1936),Robert W. Henderson 198 RESEARCHpreying ARTICLES upon the nonindigenous . 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 African ...... Jewelfish,Brian J. Camposano, Kenneth Hemichromis L. Krysko, Kevin M. Enge, Ellen M. Donlan, and Michaelletourneuxi Granatosky 212

CONSERVATION ALERT . World’s MammalsSauvage in Crisis ...... 1880, in Florida 220 . More Than Mammals ...... 223 . The “Dow Jones Index”Kenneth of Biodiversity L. Krysko ...... 1, Stephen J. Walsh2, and Robert H. Robins3 225 1Florida MuseumHUSBANDRY of Natural History, Division of Herpetology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA ([email protected]) 2U.S. Geological. Captive Survey, Care Southeast of the Central Ecological Netted DragonScience ...... Center, 7920 NW 71st Street, Gainesville, Florida 32653, Shannon USA Plummer (email: 226 [email protected]) 3Florida Museum of Natural History, Division of Ichthyology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA ([email protected]) PROFILE . Kraig Adler: A Lifetime Promoting Herpetology ...... Michael L. Treglia 234

COMMENTARY he Florida Green. The Watersnake, Turtles Have Been NerodiaWatching Me floridana ...... (Goff ties (Krysko et al. 2011). Nerodia Eric Gangloff floridana 238 has been reported 1936), is native to the southeastern United States from consuming invertebrates, fishes, frogs, salamanders, and tur- T BOOK REVIEW South Carolina to Florida. Threatened (Conant Amphibians and of the WorldCollins edited 1998). by S.N. Stuart, In M. Hoffmann,tles, without J.S. Chanson, reference N.A. Cox, to specific species (Van Hyning 1932, Florida, N. floridana (Fig.R. Berridge,1) has P. beenRamani, documentedand B.E. Young ...... through- Allen 1939, Jensen et al. 2008), Robert PowellCongo 243 Eels, more commonly out much of the state, including nearly all peninsular coun- known as Two-toed Amphiumas (= Amphiuma means; Allen  CONSERVATION RESEARCH REPORTS: Summaries of Publishedand Conservation Neill 1952), Research andReports the ...... American 245Alligator (Alligator mis-  NATURAL HISTORY RESEARCH REPORTS: Summaries of Published Reports on Natural History ...... 247  NEWBRIEFS ...... sissippiensis; Allen 1969). Additionally, 248 Bancroft et al. (1983)  EDITORIAL INFORMATION ...... reported that eight N. floridana from 251 Lake Conway, Orange  FOCUS ON CONSERVATION: A Project You Can Support ...... 252 County, Florida, contained fish remains (principally centrar- chids and poeciliids), one consumed a Greater Siren (Siren lacertina), and one contained the tail of an artificial purple Front Cover. Shannon Plummer. fishingBack worm. Cover. Michael Herein, Kern we document N. floridana preying on Totat et velleseque audant mo theTotat nonindigenous et velleseque audant African mo Jewelfish, Hemichromis letourneuxi estibus inveliquo velique rerchil Sauvageestibus inveliquo 1880, velique in Florida. rerchil erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus erspienimus, quos accullabo. Ilibus aut dolor apicto invere pe dolum aut dolor On apicto 16 invereJanuary pe dolum 1992, one of us (SJW) was electroshock- fugiatis maionsequat eumque ingfugiatis nonindigenous maionsequat eumque fishes and incidentally collected a neonate moditia erere nonsedis ma sectiatur moditia erere nonsedis ma sectia- ma derrovitae voluptam, as quos (213.1tur ma derrovitaemm SVL, voluptam, 282.6 as mm TL) female Nerodia floridana in a accullabo. canal on the northeastern corner of US 41 and SR 826, Miami, Miami-Dade County, Florida (25.76317°N, -80.31965°W, WGS84; elev. 1 m). This snake had obviously consumed a meal recently, and upon dissection it contained a nonindigenous Hemichromis letourneuxi (73 mm TL) in its stomach. The fish had been consumed head first. Both specimens were depos- ited in the Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida collections (Fig. 2; N. floridana = Herpetology UF 168052; H. letourneuxi = Ichthyology UF 184182). This is the first known record of this native snake preying on a nonindigenous fish in Florida. Hemichromis letourneuxi (Fig. 3) is native to and widely distributed in central and western Africa and Fig. 1. The Florida Green Watersnake (Nerodia floridana) is known to consume invertebrates, fishes, frogs, salamanders, turtles, and even an alli- obtains a maximum standard length of about 12 cm (Loiselle gator. Photograph by John Jensen. 1979). It was first reported as introduced to southern Florida

Fig. 3. An African Jewelfish (Hemichromis letourneuxi). Photograph by Noel M. Burkhead.

Hemichromis letourneuxi; J. Steven Godley for literature ref- erences; and Robert Powell and an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on this paper.

Literature Cited Allen, E.R. 1939. Notes on Florida water snakes. Proceedings of the Florida Academy of Sciences 3:101–104. Allen, E.R. 1969. Why save the alligator. Presented to Conservation 70s Inc. Environmental Legislative Workshop, Panel No. 4, Wildlife Resources, Homosassa Springs, Florida, USA (printed by the International Crocodilian Society, Silver Springs, Florida, USA). Allen, E.R., and W.T. Neill. 1952. The water snake. Florida Wildlife 6:13, 39. Bancroft, G.T., J.S. Godley, D.T. Gross, N.N. Rojas, D.A. Sutphen and R.W. McDiarmid. 1983. Large-scale operations management test of use of the White Amur for control of problem aquatic plants. The herpetofauna of Lake Conway: Species accounts. Final report. Miscellaneous Paper A-83-5, U.S. Army Engineers Waterways Experiment Station, CE, Vicksburg, Mississippi, USA. Fig. 2. Neonate Florida Green Watersnake (Nerodia floridana; UF 168052) with consumed nonindigenous African Jewelfish (Hemichromis Conant, R. and J.T. Collins. 1998. A Field Guide to Reptiles and Amphibians of Eastern and Central North America. 3rd edition, expanded. Houghton Mifflin, letourneuxi; UF 184182) collected on 16 January 1992 in Miami, Miami- Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Dade County, Florida. Photograph by Kenneth L. Krysko. Fuller, P.L., L.G. Nico, and J.D. Williams. 1999. Nonindigenous Fishes Introduced into Inland Waters of the United States. American Fisheries Society Special Publication 27, Bethesda, Maryland. Jensen, J.B., C.D. Camp, W. Gibbons, and M.J. Elliott (eds.). 2008. Amphibians in 1965 (Rivas 1965) and is now widespread and abundant and Reptiles of Georgia. University of Georgia Press, Athens, Georgia, USA. in canals, drainage ditches, streams, and wetlands throughout Krysko, K.L., K.M. Enge, and P.E. Moler. 2011. Atlas of Amphibians and Reptiles a large portion of southern Florida, including the Everglades in Florida. Final Report, Project Agreement 08013, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Tallahassee, Florida, USA. (Fuller et al. 1999, Page and Burr 2011). Loiselle, P.V. 1979. A revision of the genus Hemichromis Peters 1858 (Teleostei: Cichlidae). Annales Serie in 8 Sciences Zoologiques 228. Museé Royal de Acknowledgments L’Afrique Central, Tervuren, Belgique. We thank Noel M. Burkhead, James D. Williams, Jayne C. Page, L.M. and B.M. Burr. 2011. A Field Guide to Freshwater Fishes: North America North of Mexico. Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, New York, USA. Brim-Box, and Carter R. Gilbert for help with field work; Rivas, L.R. 1965. Florida freshwater fishes and conservation. Quarterly Journal of the Nicholas T. Coutu and Rebecca Reichart for assistance with Florida Academy of Sciences 28:255–258. photography; Noel M. Burkhead for the photograph of Van Hyning, O.C. 1932. Food of some Florida snakes. Copeia 1932:37.

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