A new Amphisbaena (Squamata: Amphisbaenidae) from southern Espinhaço Range, southeastern Brazil

A new species of Amphisbaena is described from a semi-deciduous forest in Conceição do Mato Dentro, southern Espinhaço Range, Minas Gerais, Brazil. The following combined characters can diagnose the new species from all congeners: head round-shaped; two or three precloacal pores sequentially arranged; 190–199 body annuli; 2–3 lateral annuli; 23–25 caudal annuli; autotomy sites on caudal annuli 7–9; 12–14 dorsal segments on midbody annulus; 14–16 ventral segments on midbody annulus; three supralabials; three infralabials; postmalar row present or absent; dorsum light brown, with cream intersegmental sutures; venter cream. To date, the new species is known only from the Espinhaço Range, highlighting the importance of conservation actions for these mountains.

A total of 72 species of amphisbaenids are known to occur in Brazil, however, the group's biodiversity is still poorly known, with many taxa discovered in the last 15 years (Costa and Bérnils 2014).Since the year 2000, 19 new amphisbaenid species were described in Brazil, representing 26% of its current richness.Besides the fossorial habits making amphisbaenids hard to find and collect, many Brazilian species named in the last decades were discovered during environmental impact assessments and wildlife rescues (see Ribeiro et al. 2008 for a short review, Ribeiro et al. 2012, Roberto et al. 2014, Teixeira et al. 2014).During an environmental impact assessment between August 2009 and May 2010 in Conceição do Mato Dentro, southern Espinhaço Range, state of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, specimens of a small Amphisbaena were collected, which we concluded to belong to a new species described below.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Specimens were found and collected by hand, during deforestation activities for the installation of a slurry pipeline in Conceição do Mato Dentro, state of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil.Scale nomenclature follows Gans and Alexander (1962) and Teixeira et al. (2014); morphometric measures were taken to the nearest 0.1 mm with a caliper, except for the snout-vent and tail lengths, which were measured with a flexible ruler to the nearest 1.0 mm.Body slenderness proportion (BSP) (snout-vent length / head width) follows Pinna et al. (2014) The ZooBank Life Science Identifier (LSID) of this publication is: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:FD9F4C2A-E6CF-4B33-B805-46DD1317702D.
The rounded tail distinguishes Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.from A. trachura (caudal tip tuberculate), A. absaberi, A. cuiabana and A. roberti (tail with a terminal vertical keel).The rostral without median contact with prefrontals distinguishes Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.from A. carli (rostral in broad contact with prefrontals).The presence of precloacal pores arranged in sequence distinguishes Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.from A. absaberi, A. carli and A. hiata (precloacal pores separated from each other by segments).
The presence of 190-199 body annuli distinguishes Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.from A. absaberi (239-242), A. anaemaeriae ventrally in A. metallurga sp.nov., and dark brown dorsally and ventrally (sometimes checkered) in A. prunicolor) (see Perez et al. 2012 for pictures of A. prunicolor).From A. silvestrii the new species can be distinguished by the shape of the third infralabial (as long as the third supralabial in A. metallurga sp.nov.and about 1.5-2 times longer than the third supralabial in A. silvestrii), and color pattern (dark brown dorsally and ventrally in A. silvestrii).Additionally, A. metallurga sp.nov.usually presents a postmalar row (see Table I for exceptions), absent in A. silvestrii.
Specimens of A. darwinii, A. heterozonata and A. trachura usually present four precloacal pores, but some A. darwinii and A. heterozonata have two or three and some A. trachura have three pores, as in A. metallurga sp.nov.In this case, A. metallurga sp.nov.can be distinguished from A. darwinii, A. heterozonata and A. trachura by the color pattern.Dorsally, preserved specimens of those three species are dark brown, while A. metallurga sp.nov. is light brown.Additionally, A. trachura presents a tuberculate caudal tip, absent in specimens of the new species, and A. heterozonata has a fewer number of caudal annuli (see above).
Description of the holotype.A small male amphisbaenian (snout-vent length 178 mm; caudal length 30 mm; BSP 36.5); head short (7.0 mm, 3.9% of snout-vent length), rounded and hardly distinct from the neck; rostrum rounded, projecting beyond the lower jaw.Rostral triangular, barely visible in dorsal view, in broad contact with nasals laterally and in narrow contact with first supralabial, lateroposteriorly.One pair of quadrangular nasals, with a middorsal suture of 1.14 mm (15.7% of head length), in broad contact with the rostral anteriorly, first supralabial laterally and prefrontals posteriorly, and in point contact with second supralabials.Nostrils placed in the antero-lateral portion of nasal shields.A pair of trapezoid prefrontals, with a middorsal suture of 2.17 mm (28.6% of head length), in broad contact with nasals anteriorly, in Three supralabials, first triangular, longer than wide, and lower than other supralabials, contacting narrowly the rostral latero-anteriorly, contacting broadly the nasal dorsally, second supralabial posteriorly, and in point contact with prefrontal.Second supralabial pentagonal, highest and longest than others, in broad contact with the prefrontal dorsally, ocular dorso-posteriorly, third supralabial posteriorly, and in point contact with nasal.Third supralabial pentagonal, higher than wide, and narrower than other supralabials, in broad contact with postsupralabial posteriorly, temporal dorsoposteriorly, second supralabial anteriorly and ocular dorso-anteriorly.
Dorsally the first body annulus includes postsupralabials, parietals, and two scales between them on each side.Ventrally it includes the postinfralabials and segments between them.There are 192 body annuli, with 12 quadrangular dorsal segments and 14 quadrangular ventral segments (central ventral segments wider than the others); dorsal and ventral sulci absent and lateral sulci visible from 17 th body annulus to cloacal shields.Two precloacal pores are visible, sequentially arranged in posterior portion of the last ventral annulus.The holotype also presents six precloacal scales and 14 postcloacal scales, three lateral annuli, 25 caudal annuli, with autotomy plan in the ninth caudal annulus, and tip of tail not compressed into a vertical keel.
In preservative, dorsal color is light brown; center of segments is darker, with cream intersegmental sutures.Venter uniformly cream colored.Head uniformly cream.In life, head uniformly light pink, dorsal segments brown with pink intersegmental sutures, and ventral segments uniformly light pink (CAC pers.obs.).I. Some additional variation in cephalic shields and scales were observed.There is no contact between temporal and ocular of the left side in UFMG 2080, FUNED 2954, FUNED  2955, FUNED 2959, and of both sides in FUNED 2948, FUNED 2949, FUNED 2952, FUNED 2953 and FUNED 2960; in these specimens the temporal contacts the postocular dorsally, third supralabial ventro-anteriorly, postsupralabial ventro-posteriorly, and the first body annulus dorso-posteriorly.Additionally, FUNED 2955 has the right temporal fused with the first body annulus.FUNED 2947 and FUNED 2951 have an additional small pair of shields between prefrontals and frontals, apparently formed by the division of the anterior portion of frontals.In FUNED 2947 the additional pair is half the length of frontals.In FUNED 2951 the additional pair has about ¼ of frontal length.

TABLE I Meristic and morphometric variations (in millimeters) of the type-series of
Distribution.The new species is known only for the type-locality, in semi-deciduous seasonal forests of Conceição do Mato Dentro, Minas Gerais, Brazil, a region inside the Espinhaço Biosphere Reserve (UNESCO 2011) (Fig. 2).
Etymology.The specific name of the new species is a transliteration of the Greek µεταλλουργος (metalloyrgos), meaning "miner" (Liddle and Scott 1996).It is here used as an adjective that agrees in gender with the generic name.The name refers to the fossorial habits of amphisbaenians, which use the head to dig underground tunnels like a miner.Paradoxically, this new "mining reptile" was found in the area where a slurry pipeline is being installed."Miner" is also the translation of the Portuguese words "mineiro" and "mineira", masculine and feminine adjectives referring to native inhabitants of the state of Minas Gerais, where the new species was discovered.

DISCUSSION
The Espinhaço Mountain Range in eastern Brazil is a large Precambrian orogenic belt extending over 1000 km in the North-South direction from the state of Bahia to the state of Minas Gerais, with elevations reaching 2000 meters (Leite et al. 2008, UNESCO 2011).In its center-south portion, the Espinhaço is at the transition zone between the Cerrado and the Atlantic Forest (UNESCO 2011).This mountain range is considered one of the most important centers of endemism of Brazilian biodiversity (Silva et al. 2008).
The southern region of the Espinhaço Mountain Range is under several human activities impacting natural environments, such as agriculture, livestock, and mining (Drummond et al. 2005).The type-locality of Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.was directly impacted by the installation of a slurry pipeline.However, including this species in any category of conservation threat would be premature, since other fragments of semi-deciduous seasonal forests are still present close to the typelocality.Therefore, we suggest the inclusion of A. metallurga sp.nov. in IUCN's Data Deficient category at global, national and regional levels.
Morphological similarities among Amphis baena metallurga sp.nov., A. darwinii, A. heterozonata, A. prunicolor, A. silvestrii and A. trachura would suggest a close phylogenetic relationship despite their current distributions (Gans 1966, Perez et al. 2012, Teixeira et al. 2014).However, considering that some morphological characters of amphisbaenids are shared by convergence (Mott and Vieites 2009) it is premature to assume if similarities among the above cited species represent synapomorphies instead of convergences.A NEW Amphisbaena FROM BRAZIL the manuscript; and Tim Williams for etymology suggestions.HCC thanks the staff at Instituto de Ciências Biológicas at Universidade Federal de Viçosa -Campus Florestal, for access to facilities.

Figure 1 -
Figure 1 -Holotype of Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.(FUNED 2943).A) head in dorsal view; B) head in lateral view; C) head in ventral view; D) detail of body dorsum; E) detail of body venter F) detail of cloacal region; G) ventral view of cloaca and tail (an incision at tail base was made to sex the specimen).Scale bars = 1 mm.Photographs by Bárbara F. Zaidan (A-F) and Flávia C. Resende (G).
Amphisbaena metallurga sp.nov.SVL = snout-vent length; TL = tail length; HW = head width; BSP = body slenderness proportion (SVL/HW); POR = number of precloacal pores; PeC = number of precloacal scales on cloacal shield; PoC = number of postcloacal scales on cloacal shield; BA = number of midbody annuli; LA = number of lateral annuli; CA = number of caudal annuli; AA = autotomy annulus; DS = number of dorsal segments; VS = number of ventral segments; PMR = number of scales in postmalar row; GEN = number of genial scales (scales of 1 st row + of 2 nd row).Specimens with a + symbol after SVL have only the anterior part of body.#Postmalar row is absent in FUNED 2940 and FUNED 2949, because their malars are longer than in other specimens of the type series, apparently fused with what would be the first postmalar of each side.