Integrative taxonomy of Micrurus ibiboboca (Merrem, 1820) (Serpentes, Elapidae) reveals three new species of coral snake

Abstract

The elapid coral snake genus Micrurus is a group of Neotropical venomous snakes divided into two clades composed of species with monadal and triadal colour patterns. Historically, several studies have considered the triadal Micrurus ibiboboca a species complex. Here, we evaluate the cryptic diversity of the M. ibiboboca species complex based on a molecular phylogenetic analysis performed on a dataset that comprised 25 described species of Micrurus and five sequenced genes (one nuclear and four mitochondrial). Furthermore, we contrasted our molecular results with a comprehensive morphological study using external and hemipenial characters. Our phylogenetic results recovered three well-supported clades for triadal colour patterns: (1) M. ortoni, M. surinamensis, M. potyguara, M. filiformis, M. lemniscatus, M. carvalhoi, M. diutius, and M. helleri; (2) M. dissoleucus and M. mipartitus; and (3) M. frontalis, M. brasiliensis, M. obscurus, M. altirostris, M. baliocoryphus, M. pyrrhocryptus, and the M. ibiboboca species complex. Based on our results, we redescribe M. ibiboboca and describe three new species of coral snake from Northeastern and Southeastern Brazil, previously confused with M. ibiboboca. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:44DE4ADA-1DE3-46E1-A288-CBC5E37105E5

Key words:

• Atlantic Rain Forest
• Caatinga
• cryptic diversity
• hemipenial morphology
• molecular phylogeny
• neotropical snakes
• systematics

Acknowledgements

We thank the following curators for allowing us to examine the specimens in their care and for providing tissue samples: A. A. Garda and W. Pessoa (UFRN); A. Argôlo, J. Alves and T. Medeiros (CZGB and MZUESC); F.L. Franco (IB); A. Haas and J. Hallermann (ZSM); D. Frost and D. Kizirian (AMNH); D. O. Mesquita and F. Delfin (CHUFPB); F. A. Juncá (MZUEFS); M. Trefaut (IBSP); H. Zaher (MZUSP); J. Losos and J. Rosado (MCZ); L. F. T. R. Pereira and P. R. Manzani (ZUEC); P. Nunes (CHUFPE); P. Passos (MNRJ); P. V. P. Lima (IVB); R. Lira da Silva (UFBA); S. Torquato (MUFAL); T. Mott (LABI); W. V. Silva (CEPB). We would like to thank Rony Almeida (MPEG) for the tips with statistical analysis. We are grateful to D. T. Feitosa, M. G. Pires, J. A. Roze, P. C. Almeida, and A. Bustamante for discussion. We are also grateful for constructive reviews of the submitted manuscript, which were provided by an anonymous reviewer and David Gower. We thank all those who provided pictures (mentioned in the figure captions).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2024.2315958

Data availability statement

Data underlying this article will be shared upon reasonable request to the corresponding author.

Associate Editor: Dr David Gower

Additional information

Funding

LRSN was supported by a scholarship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior [88887.177617/2018-00] and by the Social Demand Program [88887.601555/2021-00]. R.G. was supported by a fellowship from CAPES [PROTAX, 195784/2018-00] and CNPq [PCI- MPEG/MCTIC, 300666/2019-5, 300613/2020-2, 301346/2020-8, 300561/2021-0, 301202/2021-4, and 302060/2021-9). This work was carried out at the Molecular Biology Laboratory of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG) with funds from the FINEP grant “MPEG Analytical Park: analysis of the transformations of the Amazon and its effects on sociobiodiversity and the landscape” [0118003100].