Communal nests and hatchling size of Coleodactylus meridionalis (Squamata: Sphaerodactylidae) in a Caatinga area, northeastern Brazil

often inhabit shaded forested environments, where they are usually associated with leaf litter (Vanzolini, 1957). Their diet is diverse and consists of small invertebrates, varying from common prey such as termites and spiders, or even small mollusks (Dias et al., 2003; Vitt et al., 2005; Sousa et al., 2010). They have fixed clutch size of a single egg (Vanzolini et al., 1980; Kluge, 1987, Mesquita and Colli, 2010). Coleodactylus meridionalis (Boulenger, 1888) is one of the five species from genus found in Brazil (Bérnils and Costa, 2012) and one of the smallest lizards from South America, not exceeding 3 cm, occurs mainly in Atlantic Forest areas (Vanzolini, 1980). However, it also can be found in the characteristic biomes of open areas like ‘Caatinga’ (Vanzolini et al., 1980) and ‘Cerrado’ (Colli et al., 2002), especially in forested habitats, as well as in semideciduous forests, which comprises transitional zones between Atlantic Forest and semiarid ‘Caatinga’ (Ribeiro et al., 2013). These lizards have geographic distribution records for the states of Bahia, Sergipe, Alagoas, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará, beyond the type locality of Pernambuco and have diurnal habits and are usually associated with leaf litter, feeding on mainly on small arthropods as spiders and isopods (Vanzolini, 1957; Dias et al., 2003; Gamble et al., 2011, Ribeiro et al., 2013). Despite their wide distribution, these geckos are poorly known (Gamble et al., 2011), mainly regarding their reproductive traits. Herein, we provide relevant information about reproductive aspects, as hatchling size and existence of communal nests for C. meridionalis in a ‘Caatinga’ area, from the northeastern Brazil. In September 2013, two nests of C. meridionalis were found, containing three and four eggs respectively, in a ‘Caatinga’ area from Campina Grande municipality (7.276111°S, 35.885278°W, elev. 510 m; WGS84), Paraíba state, northeastern Brazil. Six months after the first record, in March 2014, we found three nests, containing four, two and four eggs respectively, two of them in the same site cited above. In all nests were also found eggshells hatched. All nests were under leaf litter in shaded areas, near rocks, trees and shrubs. They were carefully collected and kept in terrariums containing substrate from the original area where we collect the eggs. They were kept under natural conditions, with solar luminosity, but protected from direct incidence, until the hatching of eggs. Immediately after hatch, the hatchling were sacrificed with a lethal injection of lidocaine hydrochloride 2% and their body measurements were taken with a caliper rule digital (precision 0.01mm). For each lizard, we registered the snout-vent length, tail length, head length, width, and height, body width and height, forelimb and hindlimb length. Then, they were deposited in Coleção Herpetológica da Universidade Federal da Paraíba (CHUFPB). The first egg hatch occurred on the same day we collected it. The remaining eggs were hatching gradually in the following months (Table 1). The minimum incubation period observed was 22 days and the maximum was 72 days of incubation after we collected it (Table 1). The average incubation time was 43.07 ± 18.93. Herpetology Notes, volume 8: 125-128 (2014) (published online on 10 April 2015)