Herpetology Notes, volume 11: 907-909 (2018) (published online on 01 November 2018)

New records of Bachia bicolor (Cope, 1896) in the Caribbean Region of Colombia (Squamata, Gymnophthalmidae)

Jorge A. Díaz1,2,*, Cristian J. Castillo2, Luis F. Montes3, and Pedro L. Atencia3

The genus Bachia Gray, 1845 is widely distributed Results and Discussion in South America and exhibits its greatest diversity in During fieldwork on 22 April 2015, we found a the semi-arid foothills and in the low tropical elevations female B. bicolor (SVL = 52 mm, TL = 62 mm, ToL that surround the Amazon basin (Dixon, 1973; Barros = 114 mm; Fig. 1A) on the edge of a path adjacent and Rincón, 1999). Of the 26 known species, nine are to a forest fragment in the Serranía de los Montes de found in Colombia (Uetz et al., 2018). Bachia bicolor María, Toluviejo Municipality, Department of Sucre (Cope, 1896) is a small fossorial lizard that lives in (9.5199°N, 75.3930°W, Datum WGS84, elevation lowland tropical forests, Andean agroecosystems, 430 m). The habitat (Fig. 1B) is part of the Tropical and intervening urban areas (Dixon, 1973; Ramos- Dry Forest biome (Hernández-Camacho and Sánchez- Pallares et al., 2017). Bachia bicolor has been reported Páez, 1992) characterized by the presence of different in Colombia for 13 of its 32 departments, generally forest fragments in several successional stages and following the Andean spine as it bisects the country showing an intense habitat transformation due to (Ramos-Pallares et al., 2017). agricultural activities. In addition, on 17 May 2018, we found another female of B. bicolor (SVL = 62 mm; Material and Methods TL = 89 mm; ToL = 151 mm) within the urban part of We measured the snout-vent length (SVL), tail length Sincelejo municipality (9.3063°N, 75.4032°W, Datum (TL) and total length (ToL) of the collected lizards using WGS84, elevation 220 m) under a trunk on soil without an analogic calliper with 1 mm precision. We identified vegetation cover and scarce leaf litter. these specimens using the descriptions available in These are the first records of B. bicolor in the department the literature (Dixon, 1973; Barros and Rincon, 1999; of Sucre, increasing the number of localities where this Teixeira et al., 2013) and the vouchers are deposited species occurs far removed from the Andes (Fig. 2). in the Museo de Zoología de la Universidad de Sucre Some authors reported the presence of B. bicolor in the (MZUSU-H00011 and MZUSU-H00012). department of Sucre earlier (e.g., Ayala, 1986; Carvajal- Cogollo et al., 2012). However, in neither case were the exact localities defined and no reference was made to biological material deposited in museums. Therefore, this species seems to be more widely distributed in the lowlands of the Colombian Caribbean region than had previously been thought, and where it occurs it might be 1 Laboratório de Sistemática, Biogeografia e História Natural limited to environments that have optimal microhabitat de Anfíbios e Répteis (Mapinguari), Instituto de Biociências, conditions for these populations, such as dry forest Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo fragments, secondary vegetation, and forest plantations. Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, CEP 79.070-900, Brazil. Furthermore, our findings support that this species can 2 Grupo de Investigación en Zoología y Ecología, Universidad tolerate environments with human disturbances, such de Sucre, Sincelejo, Sucre, Colombia. 3 Facultad de Educación y Ciencias, Universidad de Sucre, as urban areas (Ramos-Pallares et al., 2017) in both Sincelejo, Sucre, Colombia. Andean and lowland habitats. * Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] 908 Jorge A. Díaz et al.

Figure 1. (A) Bachia bicolor (MZUSU-H00011) and (B) the habitat in which it was found in the Serranía de los Montes de María, Department of Sucre, Colombia.

Figure 2. Geographic distribution of Bachia bicolor in Colombia based on the records of Ramos-Pallares et al. (2017). The red and yellow stars indicate the new records in Toluviejo and Sincelejo municipalities, respectively, both in the department of Sucre.

Acknowledgements. We thank Matheus Neves, Henrique References Folly, Sarah Mangia, and Martha P. Ramírez for reviewing the manuscript. We are grateful to Richard Torres for his logistical Ayala, S.C. (1986): Saurios de Colombia: lista actualizada, y support. distribución de ejemplares colombianos en los museos. Caldasia 15: 555–575. New records of Bachia bicolor in the Caribbean Region of Colombia 909

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Accepted by Pedro Pinna