There is no doubt that there are many, many more species of
amphibians and reptiles than previously thought. Peter Uetz, maintains the Reptile Database website, and he
recently announced that in 2014, the number of known reptile species passed the
10,000 mark – and the year has not yet ended. In an email Uetz wrote the number
of reptile species is, “10,038 species (including 79 described this year),
up from 9,952 in April”. While some of these species are
obviously different, many of them are cryptic, and it takes some detailed study
of morphology or DNA to sort them out.
Trinidad is a relatively small island – 4800 square
kilometers that has had its herpetofauna relatively well studied. The first
list of herps was published in 1858, and the work by Mole and Urich at the turn
of the 20th century examined the fauna extensively. William Beebe spent the last years of his life at Simla in the Arima Valley and published a fauna list as well as a paper on the ecology of the valley. Garth Underwood and Michael Emsley also studied
and wrote about the island’s herpetofauna. Julian Kenny and Hans Boos were also
actively working on the Trinidad herpetofauna for decades. And I made five- or
six trips to the islands and examined museum specimens in the 1980-90’s for the
1997 book. During those trips, I frequently stayed at Simla and worked extensively in
the Arima Valley. In 2010, I decided to take a second look at the fauna and
since that date have made eight trips to investigate the herpetofauna of both
Trinidad and Tobago. Additionally, I have been working with colleagues to compare museum
material from the islands to those from the mainland – the results are
startling.
It has become quite obvious to me that the diversity of
reptiles on that 4800 sq km, well studied island (as well as the island of
Tobago) is much greater than what I (or anybody else) thought it was in 1990.
Within the last few years, we have described Plica caribeana and Leptophis haileyi. The Plica
is a Caribbean Coastal Range species, and the Leptophis appears to be a Tobago endemic. There are more species
forthcoming – for the most part it is a matter of time and money to get the
work done. But, preliminarily we have identified at least ten more species of
squamate reptiles currently unrecognized from the islands or masquerading under
the name of a widespread species.
In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of South American
Herpetology, Teddy Angarita-Sierra describes a new, cryptic species of
coffee snake, in the genus Ninia –
from Trinidad. It would normally not surprise me, that a small, leaf litter dwelling
snake would go un-noticed in the tropics. But, this snake is surprising because
the of the type locality – Simla. A location that has to be the most closely examined
piece of real estate on the island – in terms of its fauna.
 |
| Ninia atrata left, Nina franciscoi sp. n. right. T. Angarita-Sierra |
Angarita-Sierra describes Ninia franciscoi, from a single specimen collected at Simla 6 March
1988 by William B. Montgomery and David Resnick. This specimen looks very much
like the widespread Ninia atrata
(also found at Simla) except for the number of upper labials contacting the
primary temporal and most importantly, an unusually shaped hemipensis (see right).
 |
| Nina franciscoi sp n.,top, Nina atrata bottom. |
After reviewing this paper – I went back and looked at about
forty specimens of Ninia atrata from
Trinidad and Tobago as well as all of my photographs, looking to see if any of the others had the primary
temporal in contact with three upper labials. Some of these specimens were
collected at Simla – none showed this trait.
So, what is the significance of this? Below is a power
point slide I used in a recent presentation comparing the number of reptile
species per 1000 km2 in Trinidad & Tobago to
Venezuela. The islands are much better studied than the mainland. Trinidad
& Tobago have 4.2x more known species of reptiles per 1000 km2 than does
Venezuela (this is using the numbers from the 1997 book). In other words
mainland South America (specifically Venezuela) most likely has a vast number
of undescribed reptiles.
