Abstract

LEMA, Thales; NOGUEIRA DE QUEIROZ, Albérico  and  ALDADO MARTINS, Luciane. Color variation in Apostolepis nigrolineata (Serpentes, Colubridae: Dipsadinae: Elapomorphini), and contribution to the knowledge of the nigrolineata group. Cuad. herpetol. [online]. 2017, vol.31, n.2, pp.93-101. ISSN 1852-5768.

Color variation in A. nigrolineata was observed after examination of a large sample. The juve­niles have five-stripes, lower sides yellowish cream, snout white, several white blotches on the supralabials, as well as on the nuchal region and the region in which other species have a white collar. The adults become dark, with the paravertebral stripes fading and eventually disappearing; the lower sides become blackish, sometimes forming a stripe under the pleural strip; the snout also darkening and becomes blackish; the supralabial blotches are reduced to small one during ontogeny, being oval, or trapezoidal, under the eye; the nuchal blotches are also reduced to a pair of oval blotches. The background coloration varies from brown to reddish during develop­ment. Juveniles from western Maranhão and adjacent areas of Pará are generally darker. The nigrolineata group is restricted to the Amazonian Forest, with the exception of one species that occurs in the northeastern enclave, remnant of the last Quaternary glaciations. A. nigrolineata differs strongly from A. quinquelineata, the latter being plesiomorphic and the former, and apomorphic in relation to it.

Keywords : Amazonia; Ontogeny; Supralabial blotch; Collars; Tail blotch; Morphs.

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