cr> LT LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLI NOIS 590.5 FI BIOLOGY. Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library DEC 4 •tfwr BE DEC 071532 ?966 W67 L161 — O-1096 FIELDIANA . ZOOLOGY Published by CHICAGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM Volume 34 JUNE 27, 1952 No. 4 THE SURINAM CORAL SNAKE Micrurus surinamensis KARL P. SCHMIDT CHIEF CURATOR, DEPARTMENT OP ZOOLOGY t When I discovered, some fifteen years ago, that the collections of Dr. Harvey Bassler, Research Associate in Herpetology in the American Museum of Natural History, were, as to several species of coral snakes, about as extensive as the collections in all the museums of the world combined, I laid aside my studies on the genus Micrurus and its relatives to await the inclusion of this material. It was hoped that Dr. Bassler would report on these collections himself, but with his death in 1949 this hope has failed. The collections in question have now been made available to me through the courtesy of my friend Mr. Charles M. Bogert, and I am thus stimulated to renew an interest of long standing. My examination of coral snakes in European collections was made possible by my travels as Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1932. For a recent loan of coral snakes, called to my attention by Mr. James A. Peters, I am indebted to Dr. Norman Hartweg, of the Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan. Important new Peruvian material has also reached Chicago Natural History Museum, thanks to the collecting in the southeastern part of the country by my friend and colleague, Mr. Colin Campbell Sanborn, and by our protege", Celestino Kalinowski. We are especially indebted to Dr. Robert Mertens, Director of the Senckenberg Naturmuseum, who forwarded a specimen to be named the type of a distinct new subspecies of the Surinam coral snake, together with a second specimen retained by Chicago Natural History Museum as a paratype. The coral snake described by Cuvier as Elaps surinamensis is one of the most sharply defined of the species retained in the genus Micrurus after elimination of Micruroides euryxanthus and Lepto- micrurus narducci and collaris. Micrurus surinamensis is in fact so No. 694 25 THE LIBRARY OF THE JUL221252 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 26 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 34 easily recognizable that not a single synonymic name has been proposed for it. This species differs from all others in the genus in having a relatively narrow frontal shield, apparently in associa- tion with depressed and wide head form, and in having the head shields light in color, uniformly outlined with black. The total number of specimens discoverable in the museums of the world amounts to only fifty-three (of which I have examined fifty-one); no less than nineteen of these are in the Bassler Collection from Amazonian Peru. Micrurus surinamensis Cuvier Elaps Surinamensis Cuvier, 1817, Regne Animal, ed. 1, 2: 84 — Surinam [by implication]. Micrurus surinamensis Beebe, 1919, Zoologica, 2: 216. MATERIAL EXAMINED SURINAM (Dutch Guiana): Mus. Hist. "Mat. Paris no. 4629 (lectotype) and one specimen without number; Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. no. 6809. CAYENNE (French Guiana): Mus. Hist. Nat. Paris no. 4627. BRITISH GUIANA: Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), one specimen without number; Demerara River, one specimen without number. Dunoon, Demerara River, Univ. Mich. Mus. Zool. no. 53922. THE GUIANAS ("Guyana"): Munich no. 26/1920. BRAZIL: Para, Belem, Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), one specimen without number, and Munich no. 156/1911; on the Anama, near Belem, Munich no. 155/1911. Amazonas, Juma River, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 8593; Alto Rio Negro, Fronteira de Cucus, Mus. Nac. Rio no. 420; Marabitanos, Naturh. Mus. Wien, one specimen without number. Mato Grosso (Commissao Rondon), Chicago Nat. Hist. Mus. no. 48409 (Rio 232), and Univ. Mich. Mus. Zool. no. 57706. BOLIVIA: Buenavista, Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.) no. 27-8-1-218; Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Carnegie Mus. no. 2795. PERU: Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila. no. 11301; Univ. Arequipa no. 131; Mus. Comp. Zool. no. 12422. Iquitos, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. nos. 52205, 52665, 53113, 53487, 53690, 53699, 53824, 54426, 54538, 54889, 56030. Payarote, Rio Amazonas, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 52273, 52557. Achinamasa, below Chusuta, Rio Huallaga, no. 52758. Contamana, Rio Ucayali, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. nos. 53566, 54583. Rio Pisqui, Rio Ucayali, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 52490. Pampa Hermosa, Rio Caxabatay, Rio Ucayali, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 55420. Monte Carmelo Requena, near Isla Cedro, Rio Ucayali, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 55543. Monte Alegre, Pachitea, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 52773. Upper Ucayali, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 71134. Marcapata, Chicago Nat. Hist. Mus. no. 59180. ECUADOR: Rio Pastaza, 500 meters alt., Univ. Mich. Mus. Zool. nos. 84105, 88919-20. Anga Cocha, Rio Bobonaza, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist. no. 49055. COLOMBIA: Puerto Boy, Rio Caqueta, Inst. LaSalle, one specimen without number; Villeta, Brit. Mus. (Nat. Hist.), one specimen without number. VENEZUELA: Between Guaramoca and San Fernando, upper Orinoco, Senck. Nat. Mus. no. 20708, and Chicago Nat. Hist. Mus. no. 65163. I have taken two records from the literature, for Villavicencio, Colombia (Amaral, 1932) and for Mato Grosso (Amaral, 1925). SCHMIDT: SURINAM CORAL SNAKE 27 FIG. 4. Color pattern of Micrurus surinamensis. From Jan, Icon. G6n. Ophid., Livr. 42, pi. 3, fig. 1. The four specimens from the upper Rio Negro and upper Orinoco regions, where there is otherwise a wide gap in the distribution of the species, fall so completely outside the range of variation of the remaining series that they clearly represent a distinct undescribed form, which may be named: Micrurus surinamensis nattereri subsp. nov. Type. — Senckenberg Museum no. 20708, a female, from between Guaramoca and San Fernando, Venezuela, collected by G. Hiibner, 1895. Diagnosis. — A coral snake of the genus Micrurus with the black rings in triads, the first triad complete and beginning just behind the parietals; head red, the shields with black borders on their posterior margins; frontal shield narrow, no wider posteriorly than the supraoculars; ventrals 186-193 in males, 197-206 in females. Description of type. — A coral snake with somewhat depressed head; rostral visible from above; two internasals, two prefrontals, two supraoculars, a single relatively narrow frontal, and two parietals; two nasals, no loreal, one preocular, two postoculars, and temporals 1-2 on each side; seven upper and seven lower labials on each side; scale rows at the first widened ventral (the fifth scale from the chin shields) 19, dropping to 17 at the sixth widened ventral by fusion of the third and fourth scale rows, and dropping by fusion of the same (renumbered) scale rows at the twelfth ventral to the normal coral snake dorsal scale count of 15; a median nuchal scale behind the parietals apparently formed by the fusion of three dorsals; ventrals 206, anal divided; caudals 38, all divided. Head red, the head shields almost all with a narrow black border posteriorly; black rings in triads, consisting of a central wide black ring separated from the narrow one on each side by narrow yellow 28 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 34 zones and the triads separated by broad red rings; the first triad complete, the first narrow black ring one scale row behind the parietals; composition of a triad at midbody ventrally: Red Black Yellow Black Yellow Black Red 10 2 3 5 3 2 8 Eight and one-third triads on the body, two-thirds plus one on the tail; red zones with black spots mostly at the tips of the scales, occasionally covering an entire scale; red zones mostly with a single black ventral spot. Measurements of type. — Total length 460 mm., tail 51 mm. Notes on paratypes. — A second female specimen in the Sencken- berg Museum, no. 20709, with the same locality data as the type, is presumably from the same collector; it is credited in the Sencken- berg Museum records as from 0. Boettger, 1905. It has 197 ventrals, an undivided anal plate, and 38 caudals, of which the second and third are entire; and there are only 6^ triads of black rings on the body. This specimen has been acquired by exchange by Chicago Natural History Museum, and is now our no. 65163. With these specimens I associate a male in the Museum of Natural History of Vienna, collected at Marabitanos, Amazonas, on the upper Rio Negro, by the well-known ornithologist and zoological collector Johann Natterer; and a fourth specimen, also a male, no. 420 in the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, collected by Colonel Lako on the Alto Rio Negro, "Fronteira de Cucus," Amazonas. These two males have, respectively, 186 ventrals and 39 caudals, and 193 ventrals and 40 caudals. In the Vienna specimen the temporals are 1-1 on each side, but in the other specimens the temporals are 1-2 as in the type. Both males have the triads on body and tail * Comparisons. — While the four specimens at hand are plainly referable to Micrurus surinamensis, there is a wide gap between their scale counts and those of typical surinamensis from the Guianas, nor is there any overlap with the larger series of the typical subspecies known from the upper Amazon region in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. The range of variation in these respects in the two subspecies is as follows: No. of No. of specimens s. surinamensis specimens s. natter eri Ventrals c? ............. 25 162-174 2 186-193 Ventrals 9 ............. 19 173-187 2 197-206 Caudalscf ............. 22 31-37 2 39-40 Caudals 9 . . .16 30-34 2 38 SCHMIDT: SURINAM CORAL SNAKE 29 It is to be noted that while the gap in caudal counts is small, it remains distinctive even with the large series of the typical subspecies now available. The only remotely plausible suggestion I can make as to the origin of Micrurus surinamensis nattereri is that its isolation may somehow have been related to the Guiana Highland and its outlying mountains, such as Mount Duida. Until the range of this form is better known (and perhaps that of the more widespread surinamensis surinamensis as well), it seems useless to speculate even as to which is the more primitive and which the derived form. Micrurus surinamensis surinamensis Cuvier Elaps Surinamensis Cuvier, 1817, Regne Animal, ed. 1, 2: 84 — Surinam [by implication]; Wagler, 1830, Syst. Amphib., p. 193; Schlegel, 1837, Physion. Serp., 2: 445, and atlas, pi. 16, figs. 8-9; idem, 1844, Abbild. Amphib., p. 137, and atlas, pi. 46, fig. 9; Dumeril and Bibron, 1854, Erpet. Gen., 7: 1224; Giinther, 1858, Cat. Col. Snakes Brit. Mus., p. 234; Jan, 1872, Icon. Gen., Livr. 42: pi. 3, fig. 1; Cope, 1876, Journ. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., (2), 8: 182; idem, 1886, Proc. Amer. Soc., 23: 95; Boulenger, 1896, Cat. Snakes Brit. Mus., 3: 414; Boettger, 1898, Kat. Rept. Senck. Ges., II Teil (Schlangen), p. 125; Cope, 1899, Phila. Mus. Sci. Bull., 1: 20; Quelch, 1899, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., (7), 3: 407; Gomes, 1918, Mem. Inst. Butantan, 1: 76. Micrurus surinamensis Beebe, 1919, Zoologica, 2: 216; Amaral, 1925, Comm. Linhas Telegr. Estrat. Matto Grosso Amazonas, 84, Annexo 5: 26; idem, 1925, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., 67, Art. 24: 17; idem, 1929, Mem. Inst. Butantan, 4: 112, 232; idem, 1932, Mem. Inst. Butantan, 7: 122; Schmidt, 1936, Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Zool. Ser., 20: 197; Maria, 1942, Rev. Acad. Sci. Col., 5, no. 17: 100; Dunn, 1945, Caldasia, 3: 212. Notes on types. — Although Cuvier's original description consists only of the reference to Seba's figures (Locupletissimi . . . , 1735, vol. 2, pi. 86, fig. 1, here reproduced; and pi. 6, fig. 2), the two specimens in the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris are thought by Dume'ril and Bibron to have been named and labelled by Cuvier and are to be regarded as cotypes. Dume'ril and Bibron, indeed, indicate that these specimens may have served as the originals of the Seba figures. The two cotypes are from Surinam, the male specimen, no. 4629, being without indication of the collector, whereas the smaller female specimen (without number) is from the collections of Levaillant. The larger of these specimens, no. 4629, may be designated as the type. 30 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 34 FIG. 5. Illustration from Seba (Locupletissimi . . . , vol. 2, pi. 86), on which Cuvier based the description of Elaps^Surinamensis. The significant data for these specimens are as follows: Paris Mus. No. 4629c?... No number 9 Dorsals 17-15-15 17-15-15 Triads of Measurements Ventrals Caudals black rings Total length Tail 174 37 6^+Ml 869 114 180 32 Diagnosis. — A large coral snake of the genus Micrurus with a pattern of red, yellow, and black rings; with a stocky body and a low number of ventrals and caudals; head widened, its shields characterized by the small and narrow frontal ; scale rows on neck 17, reducing to 15 by fusion of second and third scale rows at about the tenth widened ventral; head red, the shields bordered posteriorly with black; black rings on body in triads, the triads separated by broad red zones, and each triad consisting of a wide black ring between two narrow yellow rings, which are bordered in turn by narrow black rings adjacent to the red zones; the first triad invariably complete, the last usually only two-thirds complete at the anus; anal plate divided ; in the largest males from one to three tuberculate SCHMIDT: SURINAM CORAL SNAKE 31 scales at the sides of the anus; ventrals 162-174 in males, 173-187 in females; caudals 31-37 in males, 30-34 in females. Variation and habits. — The extremes of variation in number of triads of black rings on the body are 5% to 8}/£, or, for body plus tail, 7 to 10. The average number of triads on the body is greater in females than in males, the distribution being as follows: Number of triads on body 5 6 7 8 Number of specimens, males .... 2 19 4 0 Number of specimens, females . . 0 8 8 3 The widths of the rings composing a typical triad, in numbers of ventrals, and at midbody, in C.N.H.M. no. 59180 (by way of ex- ample), are: Red Black Yellow Black Yellow Black Red 10 235329 The yellow rings are normally much narrowed above, the narrow black rings correspondingly a little widened and the central black ring much widened. The scales of the red zones, on the posterior half of each scale, are heavily marked with black, those of the yellow zones somewhat less so. The postoculars, normally two, may be fused or divided ; a single postocular appears symmetrically in three specimens, and one specimen has three postoculars on the right side. The temporals are normally 1-1 on each side, 1-2 symmetrically in ten specimens, and 1-1 on one side, 1-2 on the other in ten; a single specimen has the temporals 1-2 on the left side, 1-3 on the right. Variation in the number of upper labials is extremely rare — the count of 6-7 occurs once, 7-7 forty-one times, 7-8 three times, and 8-8 once. Lower labials are still more uniformly 7-7, with only a single specimen that deviates in this respect with 7 on the left and 8 on the right side. Micrurus surinamensis is one of the largest species of the genus, with a maximum known length of 1105 mm., in a specimen from Peru.1 Eight specimens, five females and three males, exceed 900 mm. in total length. The body is proportionately stocky, and the heavy body appears to be associated with an unusually large number of eggs; I find eleven eggs in a specimen from Peru in the Bassler collection. These measure about 20x40 mm. 1 1 am unable to verify the record length of "un metro ochenta" given by Dunn (1944, p. 212). I believe that it must mean "un metro ochenta mm." 32 FIELDIANA: ZOOLOGY, VOLUME 34 The only clue to the food of this species, perhaps a significant one, is supplied by one of Dr. Bassler's specimens from Iquitos. In its stomach was a small eel, Synbranchus marmoratus. Geographic variation.— The material at hand or already examined is still far from adequate for a definitive analysis of geographic variation within the typical subspecies. The geographic distribution of the forty-seven specimens ex- amined by myself, with two additional records from the literature, is as follows: No. of specimens The Guianas 8 Para (Lower Amazon) 3 Amazonas (Middle Amazon, Juma River) 1 Peru (Amazonian drainage) 23 Ecuador 4 Colombia 3 Bolivia 2 Mato Grosso 3 The geographic variation in this series is of an entirely different order than that between the series as a whole and the subspecies nattereri. It is evident that the material from Bolivia and Mato Grosso affords no more than a clue to the fact that the populations at the southern border of the range are not especially distinct. The three specimens known from Mato Grosso are without definite locality. I tentatively assume them to be from the Amazon drainage in the northeastern part of the state. Much the most distinct of these series of populations is that obtained by lumping together the eight specimens from the three Guianas; in these, though the range of variation is included within that of the Peruvian series, the average of both ventrals and caudals is higher: No. of No. of Upper specimens Guianas specimens Amazon Region Ventrals