A New Species ofTupinambisDaudin, 1802 (Squamata: Teiidae) from Central South America

Hemipenial morphology of whiptail lizards Glaucomastix abaetensis and Glaucomastix littoralis , with comments on the genus Ameivula (Teiidae: Teiinae)

Hemipenes are important structures for the systematics of Squamata, and may assist in the diagnosis of closely related taxa. Only one of the species of Glaucomastix (G. venetacauda) had its hemipenial morphology described in literature so far. Here we analyze and describe for the first time the hemipenes of seven specimens of G. abaetensis and 20 specimens of G. littoralis from the reptile collection of Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. In both species the hemipenes are bilobed with a forked sulcus spermaticus in a centripetal orientation and present laminar ornamentations on the hemipenial body and paired awns on the apical region of the lobes. The two species differed from each other only in the modal number of proximal laminae. The main differences in hemipenial morphology between Glaucomastix and its sister genus Ameivula are the presence of laminae in the hemipenial body (absent in Ameivula) and the absence of digitiform papillae on the apical lobular region (present in Ameivula). We expect that our data can be used as an additional tool to diagnose species within the genus Glaucomastix/Ameivula.

Exposing illegal hunting and wildlife depletion in the world's largest tropical country through social media data

Globally, illegal sport hunting can threaten prey populations when unregulated. Due to its covert nature, illegal sport hunting poses challenges for data collection, hindering efforts to understand the full extent of its impacts. We gathered social media data to analyze patterns of illegal sport hunting and wildlife depletion across Brazil. We collected data for 2 years (2018-2020) across 5 Facebook groups containing posts depicting pictures of illegal sport hunting events of native fauna. We described and mapped these hunting events by detailing the number of hunters involved, the number of species, the mean body mass of individuals, and the number and biomass of individuals hunted per unit area, stratified by Brazilian biome. We also examined the effects of defaunation on hunting yield and composition via regression models, rank-abundance curves, and spatial interpolation. We detected 2046 illegal sport hunting posts portraying the hunting of 4658 animals (∼29 t of undressed meat) across all 27 states and 6 natural biomes of Brazil. Of 157 native species targeted by hunters, 19 are currently threatened with extinction. We estimated that 1414 hunters extracted 3251 kg/million km2. Some areas exhibited more pronounced wildlife depletion, in particular the Atlantic Forest and Caatinga biomes. In these areas, there was a shift from large mammals and reptiles to small birds as the main targeted taxa, and biomass extracted per hunting event and mean body mass across all taxonomic groups were lower than in other areas. Our results highlight that illegal sport hunting adds to the pressures of subsistence hunting and the wild meat trade on Brazil's wildlife populations. Enhanced surveillance efforts are needed to reduce illegal sport hunting levels and to develop well-managed sustainable sport hunting programs. These can support wildlife conservation and offer incentives for local communities to oversee designated sport hunting areas.

Parasitism by Amblyomma rotundatum on Teiidae lizards in the eastern part of the state of Acre, Brazil

The aim of the present study was to report on the occurrence of parasitism by Amblyomma rotundatum ticks on two species of Teiidae lizards and test the presence of rickettsiae in the collected ticks, in the western Brazilian Amazon region. Ticks were collected in July 2019, from a fragment of terra firme forest in the municipality of Senador Guiomard, Acre, Brazil. Two lizards that were infested by immature stages of ticks were caught using mist net and Tomahawk traps. Ectoparasites were collected manually, and the lizard specimens were identified and released at the same location where they had been caught. Three nymphs and 49 larvae were collected from Ameiva ameiva, while 25 nymphs and nine larvae were collected from Tupinambis cuzcoensis, which are both in the family Teiidae. The ticks were identified morphologically as belonging to the genus Amblyomma. Nymphs were identified at species level through molecular analysis, resulting in the tick species Amblyomma rotundatum. This is the first record of parasitism by the tick A. rotundatum on T. cuzcoensis lizard, and the first report of an association between A. rotundatum and the lizard species A. ameiva and T. cuzcoensis in Acre, in the western part of the Amazon region.

Eight in one: morphological and molecular analyses reveal cryptic diversity in Amazonian alopoglossid lizards (Squamata: Gymnophthalmoidea)

Among the currently recognized species of Alopoglossus, the Amazonian Alopoglossus angulatus has the widest distribution. We here analyse variation in scutellation and morphometrics of A. angulatus by examining 785 specimens of Alopoglossus. We also analyse intra- and interspecific genetic structure and differentiation using two mitochondrial (Cytb and ND4) and two nuclear (SNCAIP and PRLR) genes from 97 samples. Both morphological and molecular analyses are based on specimens and samples from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru and Suriname. Our results reveal A. angulatus as a monophyletic group composed of eight independently evolved lineages: A. angulatus s.s. plus three revalidated species plus two newly described species plus two putative species. We provide descriptions of all taxa, except for the putative species, including the first description of the neotype of A. angulatus and redescriptions of resurrected junior synonyms. Illustrations, diagnoses and geographical distribution maps are provided. Gene and species trees are also provided. The two new taxa recognized in this paper, along with the revalidation of three taxa, increase the total number of known species of Alopoglossus from nine to 14.