A phylogeny of Central African Boaedon (Serpentes: Lamprophiidae), with the description of a new cryptic species from the Albertine Rift

Abstract

The Central African house snake Boaedon olivaceus has a large distribution from the forests of West Africa to Mabira Forest in Uganda. We sequenced two mitochondrial (cyt b and ND4) and two nuclear (c-mos and RAG1) genes from several populations of B. olivaceus in Central Africa and recovered two highly divergent lineages (Congo Basin and Albertine Rift) attributable to this species. Dating analyses with BEAST suggest the two lineages last shared a common ancestor during the mid-Miocene approximately 12 million years ago, and data from RAG1 showed consistent differences in two amino acids for topotypic Congo Basin B. olivaceus compared to the Albertine Rift lineage and all other examined species of Boaedon. Based on these striking molecular differences and significant differences in ventral scale counts and the number of supralabials contacting the eye, we describe the Albertine Rift lineage as a new species. The recognition of this new species bolsters the importance of the Albertine Rift as an important region for endemism and conservation in continental Africa. Based on the results of our phylogenetic analyses, the poorly known taxon Lycodonomorphus subtaeniatus upembae is elevated to full species status and transferred to the genus Boaedon. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:D0C0E5B5-DBE9-4D21-B5FE-86221DDF60BA

Key words:

• Central Africa
• house snake
• montane
• endemism

Supplementary Material

Online Supplementary Material is available for this article which can be accessed via the online version of this journal available at www.tandf.co.uk/journals/THER.

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork by Eli Greenbaum in DRC was funded by the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund; an IUCN/SSC Amphibian Specialist Group Seed Grant; K. Reed, MD; research funds from the Department of Biology at Villanova University; a National Geographic Research and Exploration Grant (no. 8556-08); UTEP; and the National Science Foundation (DEB-1145459). Eli Greenbaum and Chifundera Kusamba thank their field companions: D. Hughes; M. M. Aristote; W. M. Moninga; J.-P. Mokanse; M. Zigabe; A. M. Marcel; M. Luhumyo; J. and F. Akuku; F. I. Alonda; and the late A. M'Mema. We are grateful to F. B. Murutsi, former chief warden of the Itombwe Natural Reserve, for logistical support and permission for fieldwork in 2011, and to B. Bajope and M. Manunu of the Centre de Recherche en Sciences Naturelles who provided project support and permits. We thank the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature for permits to work in protected areas. We thank D. Dickey and D. Kizirian (AMNH); D. Blackburn and J. Vindum (CAS); J. Padial and S. Rogers (CM); G. Pauly and N. Camacho (LACM); C. Austin and E. Rittmeyer (LSUMZ); J. Losos and J. Rosado (MCZ); G. Watkins-Colwell (YPM); and K. de Queiroz, A. Wynn and J. Jacobs (USNM) for loans of specimens and tissues. We thank B. Hughes (BMNH) for providing comments on the manuscript and some data for the holotype of B. poensis, and M. Stiassny (AMNH) kindly identified a fish prey item. Special thanks to W. Rivera for the line drawings in Figure 4. Aaron Bauer provided useful information regarding the validity of Boaedon olivaceus stirnensis. We thank him for contributing the personal communication in the discussion. We acknowledge A. Betancourt of the UTEP BBRC Genomic Analysis Core Facility for services and facilities provided. The Core is supported by grants from the National Center for Research Resources (5G12RR008124-12) and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (8G12MD007592-12) from the National Institutes of Health. The authors were supported by grant DEB-1145459 from the National Science Foundation of the United States. William R. Branch and one anonymous reviewer provided comments that improved the manuscript.

Notes

* This road-killed specimen was too damaged for inclusion in morphological analyses.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork by Eli Greenbaum in DRC was funded by the Percy Sladen Memorial Fund; an IUCN/SSC Amphibian Specialist Group Seed Grant; K. Reed, MD; research funds from the Department of Biology at Villanova University; a National Geographic Research and Exploration Grant (no. 8556-08); UTEP; and the National Science Foundation (DEB-1145459).