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Type: Article
Published: 2019-03-11
Page range: 301–344
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A new species of Bothrops (Serpentes: Viperidae: Crotalinae) from Pampas del Heath, southeastern Peru, with comments on the systematics of the Bothrops neuwiedi species group

Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Centro de Zoología Aplicada, Rondeau 798, Córdoba 5000, Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal (IDEA), Rondeau 798, Córdoba 5000, Argentina.
Laboratório de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto Butantan, Avenida Vital Brasil, 1500, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Área de Herpetología, Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad Nacional de San Agustín, 051, Arequipa 04000, Perú.
Zoologisches Forschungsmuseum Alexander Koenig, Adenauerallee 160, 53113 Bonn, Germany.
Museo de Biodiversidad del Perú, Urbanización Mariscal Gamarra A-61, Zona 2, Cusco, Perú. Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Paraninfo Universitario (Plaza de Armas s/n), Cusco, Perú. Frankfurt Zoological Society-Perú, Residencial Huancaro, Los Cipreses H-21, Santiago, Cusco, Perú.
UEL-CONICET and Fundación Miguel Lillo, Miguel Lillo 251, San Miguel de Tucumán, Tucumán, Argentina
Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, Centro de Zoología Aplicada, Rondeau 798, Córdoba 5000, Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal (IDEA), Rondeau 798, Córdoba 5000, Argentina.
Museo de Biodiversidad del Perú, Urbanización Mariscal Gamarra A-61, Zona 2, Cusco, Perú. Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad Nacional de San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Paraninfo Universitario (Plaza de Armas s/n), Cusco, Perú.
Reptilia Bothrops mattogrossensis species delimitation molecular phylogeny morphological characters total evidence

Abstract

We describe a new species of pitviper of the genus Bothrops from the Peruvian Pampas del Heath, in the Bahuaja-Sonene National Park. Pampas del Heath is an area of seasonally flooded savannas and a northwestern extension of the Gran Chaco Boliviano-Paraguayo. The new species is easily distinguished from its congeners by the exclusive combination of dorsal color pattern of body consisting of small C-shaped blotches, postocular stripe originating posteriorly to the eye, covering posterior supralabials, dorsum of the head with paired markings arranged symmetrically, venter cream heavily speckled with brown, prelacunal scale discrete in contact with second supralabial, three to five prefoveals, subfoveal single usually present, postfoveals absent to two, canthals two, seven intersupraoculars, one or two suboculars, two or three postoculars, seven or eight supralabials, nine to eleven infralabials, 26–27 interrictals, 23–25 middorsal scales, 172 ventrals in the female and 169–173 in males, 45 subcaudals in the female and 50 in males. We performed separate and combined phylogenetic analyses based on morphology and five mitochondrial genes and recovered the new species as a member of the Bothrops neuwiedi species group. All lineages of this clade inhabit the South American dry diagonal. This novel species of pitviper increases the known diversity of the genus Bothrops and adds to the number of described taxa from the unique and scarcely known ecosystem of Pampas del Heath.

 

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