Discovery of a rare snail-eater snake in Venezuela (Dipsadinae, Dipsas pratti), with additions to its natural history and morphology

The snail-eating snakes that inhabit the Sierra de Perija, of both Colombia and Venezuela, have received little attention in part because of the difficult accessibility of this area, due to the roughness of the terrain and the geopolitical boarder instability in this region. One of the rarest and least known snail-eaters, Dipsas pratti (type species of its group, sensu Peters 1960), is known from 13 specimens (including the holotype). Since its original description in 1897, all known specimens of D. pratti have been collected from the Cordillera Central and Oriental of Colombia. In this study, we greatly improve our knowledge of the biology of D. pratti based primarily on nine newly collected specimens. Seven of these specimens are the first recorded from Venezuela, expanding the known range of this species by approximately 300 km to the northeast. These specimens provide additional information on external, reproductive, and hemipenial morphology, habitat, and defensive behaviors of the species. Additionally, we provide the first in-life photographs of D. pratti. This study sheds light on the biodiversity in a unique and underexplored region as well as bridging a critical knowledge gap in our understanding of an understudied group of Neotropical snakes. (© 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)