Aurivela longicauda is an endemic lizard from the Monte Desert region of western Argentina. It is an agile lizard that is typically observed during the warm hours of the day, where it inhabits sedimentary sand or dunes with a few shrubs and scattered ground vegetation. The aim of this note is to report an observation of an A. longicauda being preyed upon by an Argentine dwarf spider, Grammostola mendozae. The predation of vertebrates by arthropods is documented worldwide. The predation event was recorded in Talampaya National Park (TNP), located in an extensive plain of the Monte region (29.8°S, 67.833°W, WGS 84; 1300 m elev.) in the center-west of La Rioja Province (Argentina), which was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. At 1310 h on 11 November, during pitfall trap surveys in TNP, we found the spider feeding on the right portion of the skull, including the right eye, of an adult A. longicauda. After a few minutes, the spider dragged the lizard for a few centimeters and let it go. The lizard was collected and housed at Museo de La Plata Herpetological Collection. Our observation is the first record of predation on A. longicauda by G. mendozae.Fil: Kass, Camila Alejandra. Universidad Nacional de Chilecito. Instituto de Ambientes de Montaña y Regiones Áridas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Kass, Nicolás Ariel. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Zoología de Vertebrados. Sección Herpetología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Calvo, Rodrigo. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo. División Zoología de Vertebrados. Sección Herpetología; ArgentinaFil: Castillo, Martin Cristian. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo; ArgentinaFil: Torres, Adriana Marilyn. Universidad Nacional de Chilecito; ArgentinaFil: Juri, María Dolores. Universidad Nacional de Chilecito; Argentin

Calvo, Rodrigo

Castillo, Martin Cristian

Juri, María Dolores

Kass, Camila Alejandra

Kass, Nicolás Ariel

Torres, Adriana Marilyn

English

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Herpetological Review 49(2), 2018NATURAL HISTORY NOTES     325Negev in Israel, and in the Gaza strip (Baha El Din, op. cit.). At 1815 h on 1 June 2017 we captured an adult A. aegyptius on top of a sand dune with small thorny bushes, near Be’er Milka in west-ern Negev Desert, southern Israel, close to the Egyptian border (30.930°N, 34.412°E, WGS 84; 220 m elev.). The lizard (36.6 mm SVL; 45.2 tail length; weight 1.7 g) had an original tail that was bifurcated at its posterior part. The bifurcated part of the tail started 27 mm posterior from the cloaca, with the original tail tip six mm longer than the regenerated one. It seems that the original tail was broken, but not lost, and this allowed a new part to form while the original remained attached to the body. Hav-ing observed hundreds of individuals in the field across several years, we have never seen one with a bifurcated tail, nor are such tails found in any of the 76 individuals in the collections of the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel-Aviv University. To our knowledge there are no published cases of specimens with bifurcated tail from this species.GAVIN STARK (e-mail: gavin_stark@tutanota.com), DAVID DAVID (e-mail: davidavid6@walla.co.il), AMIR LEWIN (e-mail: amirlewin@mail.tau.ac.il), and SHAI MEIRI. Department of Zoology, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel (e-mail: uncshai@post.tau.ac.il).ANOLIS BIMACULATUS (Panther Anole). TAIL BIFURCATION. Caudal autotomy (tail-shedding) is a common antipredatory strategy among lepidosaurs (Bateman and Fleming 2009. J. Zool. 277:1–14). Lizard tails have great regenerational potential; after autotomy, the tail is regenerated as a cartilaginous rod rather than bony vertebrae (e.g., Alibardi 2017. J. Exp. Zool. B. 328B:493–514). Incomplete autotomy or injury of the tail can stimulate regeneration of an additional tail, resulting in presence of two or more tail tips (e.g., Camper and Camper 2017. Herpetol. Rev. 48:634).On 29 March 2011, a warm and sunny day, an adult male Anolis bimaculatus was observed basking on a tree in Miriam C. Schmidt Botanical Garden at Sint Eustatius, West Indies (17.4745°N, 62.9516°W; WGS 84). This individual had a deeply bifid tail. Both the basic tail and the supernumerary tail were of almost the same length and scalation (Fig. 1). Otherwise, the coloration and behavior of the lizard seemed to be unaffected by the anomalous tail. Over 100 anoles (A. bimaculatus and A. schwartzi, second anole species occurring on Sint Eustatius) and over 10 individuals of the teiid Pholidoscelis erythrocephala were observed but only this one lizard had a bifurcated tail.According to Bateman and Fleming (2009, op. cit.), the incidence of tail autotomy is relatively low in polychrotids (a family in which anoles were formerly classified), in comparison to some other iguanian clades, such as liolaemids, tropidurids, or agamids. Tail anomalies such as bifurcation or trifurcation were reported in the literature from only a few anole species—Anolis porcatus (Monsisbay and Olcha 2016. Rev. Cub. Cienc. Biol. 5:1–4) and A. equestris (Camper and Camper 2017, op. cit.), even though they are probably much more common (S. B. Hedges, pers. comm., www.anoleannals.org, 7 Nov 2017). To our knowledge, the lizard described above is the first report of tail bifurcation in A. bimaculatus.ANNA NAJBAR (e-mail: anna.najbar@uwr.edu.pl) and TOMASZ SKAWIŃSKI, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Conservation of Vertebrates, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Sienkie-wicza 21, 50-335 Wrocław, Poland (e-mail: tomasz.skawinski@uwr.edu.pl). AURIVELA LONGICAUDA (Red-tailed Teiid). PREDATION. Au-rivela longicauda is an endemic lizard from the Monte Desert region of western Argentina (Cabrera 2004. Amphibia-Reptilia 25:265–275; Yoke et al. 2006. Herpetologica 62:420–434; Harvey et al. 2012. Zootaxa 3459:156). It is an agile lizard that is typical-ly observed during the warm hours of the day, where it inhab-its sedimentary sand or dunes with a few shrubs and scattered ground vegetation (Cei 1993. Museo Regionale di Scienze Natu-rali Monografie [Turin] 14:1–949; Scolaro 2005.Reptiles Patagóni-cos – Sur. Ed. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia, Trelew). The aim of this note is to report an observation of an A. longicauda being preyed upon by an Argentine dwarf spider, Grammostola mendozae. The predation of vertebrates by arthropods is docu-mented worldwide (Hernández-Ruz et al. 2014. Herpetol. Rev. 45:126; Raissa Fries Bressan et al. 2017. Herpetol. Rev. 48:187–188; Muñoz et al. 2017. Herpetol. Rev. 48:193).The predation event was recorded in Talampaya National Park (TNP), located in an extensive plain of the Monte region (29.8°S, 67.833°W, WGS 84; 1300 m elev.) in the center-west of La Rioja Province (Argentina), which was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. At 1310 h on 11 November, during pitfall trap surveys in TNP, we found the spider feeding on the right portion of the skull, including the right eye, of an adult A. longicauda (Fig. 1). After a few minutes, the spider dragged the lizard for a few centimeters and let it go. The lizard was collected and housed at Museo de La Plata Herpetological Collection. Our observation is the first record of predation on A. longicauda by G. mendozae. Fig. 1. Anolis bimaculatus with bifurcated tail.Herpetological Review 49(2), 2018326    NATURAL HISTORY NOTESWe thank Joaquin Petrillo for spider identification, APN and Talampaya’s National Park and forest rangers. This research was funded by IAMRA- UNdeC.CAMILA A. KASS, Universidad Nacional de Chilecito, IAMRA, La Rioja. CONICET. Sección Herpetología- FCNyM-UNLP, Calle 122 y 60, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina (e-mail: camilakass@gmail.com); NICOLAS A. KASS and RODRIGO CALVO Sección Herpetología- FCNyM-UNLP, Calle 122 y 60, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina; MARTIN CRISTIAN CASTILLO, FCNyM-UNLP, Calle 122 y 60, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina; ADRIANA MARILYN TORRES and MARIA DOLORES JURI, Universidad Nacional de Chilecito, Campus Los Sarmientos, Ruta Los Peregrinos S/N, La Rioja.CARLIA CAESIUS. REPRODUCTION. Carlia caesius is a mem-ber of the C. fusca complex (Zug and Allison 2006. Zootaxa 1237:27–44) and is known from the type locality: Indonesia, Pap-ua Province, Timika (4.5417°S, 136.8908°E). In this note I present, to my knowledge, the first information on C. caesius reproduc-tion, from a histological examination of 29 specimens collected March 1997 at the type locality and deposited in the Vertebrate Zoology collection (BPBM) of the Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. The sample consisted of 13 males (mean SVL = 44.0 ± 7.5 SD, range = 33–58 mm; BPBM 21154, 21161, 21173, 21178, 21194, 21205, 21211, 21212, 21246, 21253, 21259, 21271, 21277), 11 females (mean SVL = 48.1 mm ± 4.6 SD, range = 41–56 mm; BPBM 21156, 21171, 21185, 21188, 21213, 21235, 21248, 21251, 21257, 21269, 21281), and five unsexed subadults (mean SVL = 27.4 mm ± 4.0 SD, range = 23–33 mm; BPBM 21184, 21192, 21198, 21202, 21204). A cut was made in the lower abdominal cavity and the left testis or left ovary was removed, embedded in paraffin, cut into 5-μm sections and stained by Harris hematoxylin, fol-lowed by eosin counterstain. Only enlarged follicles (> 4 mm) or oviductal eggs were counted. Histology slides were deposited at BPBM. In males undergoing sperm formation (spermiogenesis), the lumina of the seminiferous tubules were lined by groups of sperm. Also present were males in testicular recrudescence that had not yet commenced spermiogenesis; these included BPBM 21205, 21253, 21271 (primary spermatocytes present), BPBM 21154, 21246 (spermatids present). The smallest reproductively active males (spermiogenesis) measured 38 mm SVL (BPBM 21178, 21194). The female sample contained two females (BPBM 21171, 21281) with quiescent ovaries (no yolk deposition), SVL = 41 mm for each. Mean clutch size was 2.1 ± 0.35 eggs (range = 2–3, N = 8). The smallest mature C. caesius female measured 44 mm SVL (BPBM 21235) and contained a vitellogenic follicle with basophilic yolk granules. In my sample of five unsexed subadults, the smallest C. caesius measured 23 mm SVL (BPBM 21204) and was presumably close to neonate size. Examination of additional monthly samples of C. caesius are warranted to fully characterize the reproductive cycle.I thank Molly E. Hagemann (BPBM) for permission to examine Carlia caesius.STEPHEN R. GOLDBERG, Whittier College, Department of Biology, Whittier, California 90608, USA; e-mail: sgoldberg@whittier.edu.CNEMASPIS KENDALLII (Kendall’s Rock Gecko). ENDOPARA-SITE. Cnemaspis kendallii ranges from southern Peninsular Ma-laysia and Singapore to Borneo; it is a diurnal scansorial gecko (Grismer 2011. Lizards of Peninsular Malaysia, Singapore and Their Adjacent Archipelagos. Edition Chimaira, Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 728 pp). We know of no helminths reported for C. kendallii. In this report we establish the initial helminth list for C. kendallii. We conducted a helminthological examination on eight C. kendallii (mean SVL= 54.3 mm ± 3.0 SD, range = 49–58 mm) collected February 2009 in East Malaysia, Sarawak State, northeast Borneo and deposited in the herpetology collection of La Sierra University, (LSUHC), Riverside, California as LSUHC 9171–9173, 9176, 9178–9181. Lizards were sacrificed by an overdose of pentobarbital. A lateral incision was made through the body wall and the digestive tract was removed. The esophagus, stomach and small and large intestines were opened longitudinally and searched for helminths utilizing a dissecting microscope. The body cavity was also searched. Helminths were cleared in a drop of lactophenol, placed on a microscope slide, coverslipped and studied under a compound microscope. Two female Nematoda (Physalopteroides sp.) were found in the stomach of LSUHC 9180 (prevalence = number infected/number examined × 100 = 13%). Physalopteroides sp. was identified by the morphology of the asymmetrical oral opening; teeth on one pseudolabium were more pronounced or numerous than those on the other (Anderson et al. 2009. Keys to the Nematode Parasites of Vertebrates, Archival Volume. CAB International, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 463 pp.). Keys to species of Physalopteroides are based on male spicule length and caudal papillae morphology (see Bursey and Goldberg 2016. Comp. Parasitol. 83:221–226). Physalopteroides sp. was previously reported in Cnemaspis peninsularis from East Malaysia, Sarawak by Goldberg et al. (2015 J. Nat. Hist. 49:2683–2691). Voucher helminths were deposited in the Harold W. Manter Laboratory (HWML), University of Nebraska, Lincoln, USA as HWML 64674. Physalopteroides sp. in C. kendallii is a new host record. STEPHEN R. GOLDBERG, Whittier College, Department of Biol-ogy, Whittier, California 90608, USA (e-mail: sgoldberg@whittier.edu); CHARLES R. BURSEY, Pennsylvania State University, Department of Biol-ogy, Shenango Campus. Sharon, Pennsylvania 16146, USA (e-mail: cxb13@psu.edu); L. LEE GRISMER, La Sierra University, Department of Biology, Riverside, California 92505, USA (e-mail: lgrismer@lasierra.edu). CNEMIDOPHORUS OCCELIFER. DIET. Cnemidophorus oc-celifer is a medium-sized, diurnal, carnivorous teiid lizard (Mes-quita and Colli 2003. J. Herpetol. 37:498–509). It feeds mainly on arthropods, and can be found throughout Brazil, except in the Amazon region (Vanzolini et al. 1980. Répteis das Caatingas. Ac-ademia Brasileira de Ciências, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). Here, we report an observation on C. occelifer preying upon a grasshoper in the Catimbau National Park, Pernambuco State, Brazil.At 1100 h on 18 October 2017, during field work in the Catimbau National Park, Caatinga domain, Pernambuco, Brazil (8.34150°S, 37.14385°W, WGS 84; 764 m elev.), we observed a C. occelifer preying on an adult grasshoper belonging to the genus Fig. 1. A) Grammostola mendozae preying on Aurivela longicauda. B) Close-up shot of Aurivela longicauda’s eaten head.

Aurivela longicauda (Red-tailed Teiid). Predation

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Aurivela longicauda (Red-tailed Teiid). Predation

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