Short Communication |
Corresponding author: Mayara da Silva Ribeiro de Morais ( moraiis.mayara@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Yurii Kornilev
© 2020 Mayara da Silva Ribeiro de Morais, Paula Fernanda de Araújo, Renato Magnum Tavares Costa, Frederico Gustavo Rodrigues França.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
de Morais MSR, de Araújo PF, Costa RMT, França FGR (2020) First record of cannibalism in Thamnodynastes phoenix Franco, Trevine, Montingelli & Zaher, 2017 (Serpentes, Colubridae). Herpetozoa 33: 17-19. https://doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.33.e47317
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Cannibalism has been documented across many groups of snakes and the same is true for Brazilian snakes. Herein, we present the first observation of cannibalism in Thamnodynastes phoenix between two adult males from Caatinga biome of northeastern Brazil. We suggest this behavior could be influenced by a lack of resources caused by extreme abiotic conditions, as well as the opportunistic habits of this species.
Brazil, Caatinga, diet, ecology, feeding habits, intraspecific predation, snake behavior
Cannibalism has been recognized as an important aspect in trophic ecology and it occurs in many animal species (mainly in captivity) despite being regarded as a maladaptive trait (
The genus Thamnodynastes comprises 20 species and occurs across South America (
Thamnodynastes snakes feed mainly on frogs (e.g.
On 28 June 2019 at 12:35 hrs we observed an adult male T. phoenix (52.2 cm SVL, 15.2 cm tail length, 65 g) swallowing, head first, another adult male (49.5 cm SVL, 13.6 cm tail length) (Fig.
The individuals were taken to the Animal Ecology Lab in Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Rio Tinto municipality, Paraíba State, Brazil (UFPB). The predator was dissected for stomach content examination after being euthanized following the proposal by
This observation was quite unexpected. Thamnodynastes phoenix, like the other species of the genus, is considered an anurophagous snake although its congeners diets are known to include lizards, rodents and fishes (
Cannibalism of adult individuals has never been reported in the genus Thamnodynastes. This behavior can be considered a strategy for demographic control (
Our observation provides important addition to the knowledge of predator-prey relationships, especially considering the scarcity of data on snake diet from the semiarid regions of Brazil and particularly for the genus Thamnodynastes.
MSRM thanks the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for providing scholarships. We thank Rialma SA, represented by Igsson Chianca, for the logistic support and stimulus for data publication. FGRF thanks the CNPq for the financial support (Universal grant 404671/2016-0).