Herpetology Notes, volume 10: 433-434 (2017) (published online on 25 August 2017)

Predation attempt on the tree frog Hypsiboas faber (Wied- Neuwied, 1821) by the hypoconia (Cope, 1860)

Pedro S. Manoel1* and Silvio C. de Almeida1

Hypsiboas faber (Wied-Neuwied, 1821) is a large of zoological collections of the region (Museu tree frog that inhabits forested and open areas near de Zoologia/Universidade Estadual de Campinas - streams and large permanent ponds from eastern ZUEC and Coleção Herpetológica “Alphonse Richard to northeastern Argentina (Martins and Haddad, 1988). Hoge” - IBSP–Herpeto). This tree frog is the target of different kinds of predators This is the first record of Hypsiboas faber as prey of throughout their ontogeny and adults are mainly preyed Thamnodynastes hypoconia. Once this snake usually upon by (Martins et al., 1993). preys on small-sized anurans, such as Chiasmocleis The coastal house snake, Thamnodynastes hypoconia albopunctata (Maffei et al., 2011), Dendropsophus (Cope, 1860), is a nocturnal opisthoglyph snake elianae (Moya and Maffei, 2012), Scinax perereca, and (Dipsadidae) that is widely distributed in Brazil Scinax rizibilis (Pombal Jr, 2007), and normally ingests (Franco and Ferreira, 2002). This lives in open the head first (Bellini et al., 2013), the reported predation areas, near lentic aquatic environments, and its diet is attempt may have failed due to the huge size of the prey mainly comprised of leptodactylids, hylids, and very and the way that the snake tried to swallow it. According occasionally, lizards (Bellini et al., 2013; Dorigo et al., to Sazima and Martins (1990), the behaviour of trying to 2014). ingest very large preys are common in juvenile snakes On 11 November 2014, at 20:40 h, we saw a and may involve waste of time and energy, and increase Thamnodynastes hypoconia trying to prey on an adult the risk of chocking and predation. Besides that, this tree frog Hypsiboas faber (Fig. 1) in a pond (22.8866°S, behavior can be related to learning in the optimization 48.4999°W, 875 m) in the city of Botucatu, State of of energy acquisition and availability of prey. São Paulo, southeastern Brazil. The animals were found on the surface of the water where the snake had swallowed approximately half of the posterior left leg of the frog (Fig. 2). The frog was trying to escape, moving its body and issuing a release call. After ca. 40 minutes, the snake released the frog’s leg and the frog ran away. In order to not interfere in the behaviour of the animals, the snake cannot be collected. Thus, the identification was made based on the geographic distribution of genus Thamnodynastes in São Paulo State and comparison between the photography and

1 Universidade Estadual Paulista - UNESP, Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências de Botucatu, CP 510, CEP Figure 2. Thamnodynastes hypoconia trying to swallow the 18618-970, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brazil posterior left leg of an adult of Hypsiboas faber in southeastern * Corresponding author e-mail: [email protected] Brazil. 434 Pedro S. Manoel and Silvio C. de Almeida

Figure 1. Thamnodynastes hypoconia trying to prey on an adult of Hypsiboas faber in southeastern Brazil.

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Accepted by Martin Jansen