Wilian Vaz-Silva

Amphibians and reptiles from southeastern Goiás, Central Brazil

Even harboring a high diversity and many endemic species of amphibians and reptiles, the Cerrado biome has shown drastic changes due to the conversion of natural areas into pastures and plantations. Here, we present a checklist of amphibians and reptiles from southeastern state of Goias, Central Brazil. This checklist was the result of collecting efforts of an inventory along the basin of the Piracanjuba and Peixe rivers carried out between September 2010 and January 2011. We recorded 39 amphibians and 40 reptiles. These results were also compared to other studies in the Cerrado biome. Our results showed that this region has a rich herpetofauna, despite the progress of anthropogenic activities in the region.

Dendropsophus sarayacuensis (Shreve, 1935) (Amphibia: Anura: Hylidae): filling gap on the geographic distribution

The current communication reports a record of Dendropsophus sarayacuensis (Shreve 1935) for the municipality of Itaituba, state of Para, Brazil. It is the first record from the middle Tapajos river region, southeast of State of Para, filling gap on the geogrphic distribution of this species and extending the distribution from localities currently reported in the literature.

A new cryptic species of Oreobates (Anura: Craugastoridae) from the seasonally dry tropical forest of central Brazil

A new species of Oreobates Jiménez de la Espada, 1872 is described from the seasonally dry tropical forest associated to rocky outcrops of the northeastern Goiás State, Central Brazil. Oreobates antrum sp. nov. is diagnosable by the combination of morphological characters (e.g. small size, dorsal and ventral skin texture smooth to finely shagreened, and broadly enlarged truncate discs on Fingers III and IV), call attributes (composed of a single note and no harmonics with dominant frequency ranged 2070 Hz to 3273 Hz), and supported by molecular evidence (phylogenetic position and genetic divergence) with high degree of differentiation among other Oreobates species (divergences of 4.0-20.6% for 12S, 7.0-14% for 16S, 0.7-4.0% for RAG-1, and 1.1-8.0% for TYR). The new species was recovered as the sister of Oreobates remotus.

A new four-pored Amphisbaena Linnaeus, 1758 (Amphisbaenia, Amphisbaenidae) from Brazilian Amazon

A new species of Amphisbaena is described from the Brazilian Amazon, within the area impacted by the Teles Pires hydroelectric power plant, Jacareacanga municipality, State of Pará. Amphisbaena hoogmoedi sp. nov. can be diagnosed from its congeners by the following combination of characters: snout convex in profile view, sligthly compressed not keeled; pectoral scales arranged in regular annuli; conspicuous autotomic site between 7th-8th caudal annuli; 247-252 dorsal half-annuli; 27 caudal annuli; tail length 9.5-10.4% of snoutvent length; four precloacal pores arranged in sequence; three supralabials; a rounded tail; 22-24 dorsal segments in midbody annulus; postmalar row absent; head length 2.1-2.9% of snout-vent length; prefrontals length 46.6-49.5% of head length; prefrontals suture length 38-44.6% of head length; small malar length 10.6-13.4% of ventral length of head ; second infralabial length 33.8-38.5% of head length; ventral length of head 2.7-2.9% of snout-vent length; mouth length 80.2-81.8% of head length; third infralabial length 16.4-19.6% of head length; snout length 62.5-78.6% of head length; ocular length 23.4-26.2% of head length; mental length 23.2-25.4% of ventral length of head; postmental length 27.2-31.3% of ventral length of head; frontals suture length 23.4-32.3% of head length; postocular width 25-31.9% of maximun width of head; first supralabial length 24.9-30.6% of head length; second supralabial length 27.7-30% of head length and second supralabial height 26.9-28.8% of maximun head height. The hemipenis is bilobed, capitate and with lateral lamellae on the lobes; with a centrally-positioned spermatic groove, bifurcated at the base of the lobes, and with each branch extending to the tip of organ.