Iphisa brunopereira Albano & Mello & Recoder & Fouquet & Rodrigues & Nunes 2024, sp.nov.
Creators: name: Albano, Anna V.
name: Mello
name: Recoder, Renato S.
name: Fouquet, Antoine
name: Rodrigues, Miguel T.
name: Nunes, Pedro M. S.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Reptilia
Squamata
Gymnophthalmidae
Iphisa
Iphisa brunopereira

description: Iphisa brunopereira sp.nov.
(Fig. 7H); OTU 7
Zoobank registration: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: CBB21224- 8151-413B-8A3F-AAE6F7514C77
Etymology: Name in apposition. The species honours Bruno Pereira, a National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (FUNAI) indigenist brutally murdered on 5 June 2022, together with the British journalist Dom Phillips, owing to his work protecting the indigenous communities of the Javari River Valley in western state of Amazonas, Brazil from the illegal exploitation and occupation of their lands. May he always be remembered as a symbol of the struggle of indigenous peoples for their right to self-determination and the struggle to preserve the Amazon.
Iphisa elegans: Duellman 1978: p. 215; according to Duellman (1978), Fitch (1968: p. 37) erroneously identifies a specimen of Iphisa from Ecuador as Calliscincophis agilis; Ribeiro-Júnior et al. 2017: pp. 169–170 (part).
Holotype: MZUSP 107618 (field number MTR 36543), from São Pedro (3° 02ʹ 06.5″ S, 68° 52ʹ 58.6″ W; WGS 84) municipality of Santo Antônio do Içá, state of Amazonas, Brazil. Collected on 23 April 2015 by Miguel Trefaut Rodrigues, Mauro Teixeira Jr, Renato Recoder, Marco Sena, Ivan Prates, Francisco Dal Vechio, Pedro Dias, Sérgio Marques de Souza and José Mario Ghellere.
Paratypes: Brazil: Amazonas: Açaí, Içá River (left margin): MTR 36228; São Pedro, Içá River (right margin): MTR 36599, MTR 36597; Mato Grosso: Araputanga: UFMT 6252, UFMT 6555.
Diagnosis: (i) Femoral pores in females always present (16–20, modal value = 18); (ii) always seven supralabials, with fifth supralabial being the largest and the third and fourth supralabials always under the eye; (iii) prefrontals always present; and (iv) hemipenes morphotype 1.
Description of the holotype (Fig. 12): Adult male, with snout– vent length 43.6 mm. Rostral broad, well visible from above, width two times height, in contact with the first supralabial, nasal and frontonasal. Frontonasal width two times height, contacting rostral, nasal, loreal and prefrontals. Prefrontals hexagonal, narrower in the midline, contacting each other, in contact with the loreal, first and second supraocular, frontal and frontonasal. Frontal hexagonal, longer than wide, in contact with prefrontals, second supraocular and frontoparietals. Frontoparietals pentagonal, in contact at midline, longer than prefrontals, contacting frontal, second and third supraocular, parietal and interparietal. Interparietal length more than two times width, slightly longer and half the width of parietals, with anterior margin pointed; in contact with frontoparietals, parietals and, posteriorly, with the first pair of dorsal scales. Parietals heptagonal, wider than long, in lateral contact with two temporals, anteriorly contacting third supraocular and frontoparietals, posteriorly contacting first pair of dorsals. Three supraoculars: first the smallest; second the largest, in broad contact with frontal; the third superocular is of medium size, in broad contact with frontopariental. Nasal above first supralabial; nostril in the centre and lower part of the scale; in contact with loreal, frontonasal and rostral. Loreal posterior to nasal, narrower and diagonally oriented; contacting posteriorly first superciliar, preocular and frenocular. Frenocular below loreal and preocular, smaller than preocular, followed by subocular, contacting loreal, preocular, subocular and second supralabial. Seven supralabials: third and fourth under the eye; fifth the largest, wider than high, contacting two temporals, suboculars and postocular; seventh supralabial the smallest, contacting granules around tympanum and two temporal scales. Medial region of eyelid with a semitransparent undivided disc surrounded by granular smooth scales. Lower eyelid with 10 strongly pigmented palpebrals. Four superciliaries: first the largest, wider anteriorly, contacting first and second supraocular, second superciliary, preocular, loreal and eyelid. Temporal region with smooth scales of different sizes and shapes. Ear opening surrounded by small juxtaposed rounded granules; external auditory meatus large, tympanum ovoid and recessed. Lateral scales of the neck smooth and imbricate. Mental broad, shell-shaped, wider than long, in contact with the postmental and first infralabials. Postmental heptagonal, larger than mental, in contact with first and second supralabials. Two pairs of chin shields: the first pair very large, posteriorly wider, occupying more than half of the ventral region of the head; the second pair much smaller, separated by the first pair of gular scales, contacting third and fourth infralabials. Five infralabials: third the largest, fifth smallest, in contact with granules of the tympanic region. Eight pairs of smooth, intercalated, imbricate and rounded gular scales, followed by five distinct interbrachial scales, three of them larger than gular scales. Two longitudinal rows of ventral scales with 18 pairs, from interbrachials (not included) to preanals. A longitudinal cut between the fifth and eighth pairs, for tissue sampling. Lateral scales rounded, imbricate, with similar size at mid-body, becoming smaller and rounded around arm level. Four transverse rows of lateral scales at mid-body, with incision for tissue extraction between sixth and seventh pair. Thirty-one transverse rows of smooth dorsal scales, imbricate, alternated, hexagonal, wider than long, wider in occipital region and more narrow at the hindlimb level. A distinctive area with granular scales surrounds the area of arm insertion. Last one-third of tail with lanceolate, keeled, imbricate, alternated dorsal scales; ventral scales of tail are smooth, imbricate and alternated; more rounded near to anal plate. Anal plate with five lanceolate scales: central and paramedial scales are the largest, medial one recessed, narrower than peripheral scales. Eleven continuous femoral pores on each leg, with no preanal pores, each pore within a small rounded scale on the ventral surface of hindlimbs. Right hemipenis everted and left hemipenis removed. Forelimbs with large, smooth and imbricate dorsal scales; those on ventral part of brachium much smaller and rounded. Anterior and ventral parts of hindlimbs with smooth and imbricate scales. Posterior part of hindlimbs with granules, grading progressively to larger, imbricate in dorsal part of tibia. Metacarpal and metatarsal dorsal scales are smooth, imbricate and larger than phalangeal scales; supradigital lamellae smooth and imbricate. Palmar and plantar surfaces with small granules; right palmar surface with 12 single infradigital lamellae on finger IV, left one with 12; right plantar surface with 16 single infradigitals on toe IV, left one with 17. Toes and fingers, except for finger I, clawed and of the following relative sizes: I <II <V <III <IV. Left toe IV broken.
Coloration in preservative: Dorsal and tail surfaces of body dark brown, dorsal surface with two darker aligned stripes, darker blotches on anterior portion and lateral scales in the margins of scales, forming a line from the beginning to the 20th dorsal scale. Flanks black from the nasal to the hindlimbs. Venter immaculate and cream.
Measurements of holotype (in millimetres): SVL 43.6; TRL 23.3; HL 9.7; HW 7.4.
Sexual dimorphism and variation: Given that only four females were analysed, no sexual differences could be analysed.
Comments: The hemipenial morphotype 5 is found in two specimens from Ecuador (Morona Santiago: Rampon and Napo: Puerto Libre, Rio Aguarico), and an individual from Estirón, Peru (MZUSP 13964) has hemipenial morphotype 1. However, the lack of molecular data for these individuals does not allow us to determine their identity securely.
Distribution: Iphisa brunopereira is distributed in west Amazonia on the margins of the Içá River (Amazonas) in the communities of Cachoeirinha, Cuiauá and Açaí in Santo Antônio do Içá (left margin) and São Pedro, in Santo Antônio do Içá (right margin). They are also distributed further west in Amazonia, in the Napo–Putumayo interfluvium, in Peru, and in lowland regions of Ecuador (green in Fig. 2).
description: Published as part of Albano, Anna V., Mello, Recoder, Renato S., Fouquet, Antoine, Rodrigues, Miguel T. & Nunes, Pedro M. S., 2024, Integrative taxonomy of the Iphisa elegans Gray, 1851 species complex (Squamata: Gymnophthalmidae) leads to the description of five new species, pp. 477-504 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 200 (2) on pages 496-498, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlad073, http://zenodo.org/record/11240018