New easternmost and southernmost records of Pseudoboa coronata Schneider , 1801 ( Serpentes : Dipsadidae : Pseudoboini ) , with a distribution map

The snake species Pseudoboa coronata has wide distribution from central Brazil to coastal Venezuela and the Guianas, eastern Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. In this note, the known distribution range of P. coronata is extended eastward to the border between the states of Bahia and Pernambuco, and southward to Cachoeira Alta, state of Goiás, both in Brazil. Considering the limited biogeographic information for most taxa, reports like this add significant data for future studies on biogeography, taxonomy, and conservation biology.

and Bolivia (Gaiarsa et al. 2013).In Brazil it is recorded from Cerrado areas in the states of Goiás and Tocantins, and from Amazon Forest in Acre, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, and Roraima (e.g., Silva Jr. et al. 2005;Zaher et al. 2008;Bernarde et al. 2013).Despite its wide distribution range, P. coronata is considered to be rare, at least in some Amazonian areas (Cunha and Nascimento 1993).Here we present an eastward and southward extension of the currently known range of P. coronata, as well as a literature review and updated map of distribution records.
The range extensions are based on specimens housed in the snake collection of Fundação Ezequiel Dias (FUNED), in Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil (Resende and Cotta 2013).In 2011, while examining the specimens from FUNED's collection, we identified two Pseudoboa coronata: FUNED 213 (Figure 1A and 1B), from the Usina Hidrelétrica Luiz Gonzaga (a hydroelectric power plant, previously called Itaparica), located in the São Francisco river on the boundary of the states of Bahia (at Glória, Rodelas, and Abaré counties) and Pernambuco (at Petrolândia, Floresta, Itacuruba, and Belém do São Francisco counties); and FUNED 902 (Figure 1C and 1D), from Cachoeira Alta, Goiás.
The record from Luiz Gonzaga power plant is the first of P. coronata for the Caatinga ecoregion (Desert and Xeric Shrublands biome [Olson et al. 2001]), and also its new easternmost record (previously Nova Vida, BR316, 25 km do Gurupi, state of Maranhão, Brazil) (Zaher et al. 2008).The record from Cachoeira Alta is the second record for Goiás and the southernmost record of P. coronata (previously in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia [Fugler and Cabot 1995]).Morphological data of these two specimens are presented in Table 1.Specimens were identified with the aid of the dichotomous key and color patterns in Zaher et al. (2008).unlabeled specimen originally deposited at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington (UNC-W) in USA, collected at Mendez, in the Ecuadorian province of Morona Santiago, with a dorsal color pattern (dark brown with narrow cream bands) different from that usually found in P. coronata.The referred specimen was not found in the UNC-W collections (Alex Vance, pers. comm.), making it impossible to confirm its identity and, therefore, its record was not considered.The other five Ecuadorian specimens cited by Fugler and Walls (1978) are deposited at the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution.We were able to examine photographs of those specimens, but one of them (USNM 204156 from Macuma, Morona Santiago, Ecuador) has a brownishgray dorsum in preservative, suggesting it was not red in life.Since a careful analysis of this specimen was not possible we were not sufficiently confident to include it in our database.Those specimens cited by Fugler and Walls (1978) and Cole et al. (2013) were the only specimens cited in the literature that were examined by us.
Due to the existence of many biodiversity shortcomings in biological sciences, especially the Wallacean shortfall (limited biogeographic information for most taxa; Whittaker et al. 2005;Cardoso et al. 2011), reports An updated map of distribution records of Pseudoboa coronata is presented in Figure 2, based on the new specimens and literature sources.Details about locality records are presented in Table 2. Some references that mention the occurrence of P. coronata with poor locality data were not used (i.e., Boulenger 1896; Avila-Pires 2005; Embert 2007; Rivas et al. 2012).When possible, coordinates were inferred from original mapped points (i.e., Chippaux 1986;Pérez-Santos and Moreno 1988;Starace 1998), although not all of them are associated with a voucher specimen in the original reference (e.g., some records from Pérez-Santos and Moreno 1988).Fugler and Walls (1978)    of range extensions add significant data for future studies on biogeography, taxonomy, and conservation biology.Furthermore, the wide range of Pseudoboa coronata, its occurrences in a variety of habitats, and the absence of a careful review of its taxonomy support the hypothesis that more than one species could have been treated under the same name.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The review of specimens from FUNED's snake collection was funded by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa no Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG), through the Programa Biota Minas.We thank Flávia C. Resende for measuring the specimens.Marinus S. Hoogmoed kindly provided locality data of Surinam specimens.We are also grateful to Omar Torres-Carvajal and the Museo de Zoología QCAZ (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador) for allowing the use of data from ReptiliaWebEcuador (http://zoologia.puce.edu.ec/Vertebrados/Reptiles/ReptilesEcuador/Default.aspx); Alex Vance for in for m ation about specimens housed at UNC-W collections; James Poindexter for photographs of specimens from USNM; Caryne Braga for her useful tips about mapping.Davi L. Pantoja (subject editor) and Vinícius A. São-Pedro (reviewer) provided useful comments and suggestions.

LITERATURE CITED
Costa et al. | Distribution range of Pseudoboa coronata records

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Known records of Pseudoboa coronata.Red dots: locality records from which geographic coordinates were given by the original source or had been taken from Costa et al. (2013), Paynter and Taylor (1991), Paynter (1993), IBGE (2011) or Google Earth © .Blue circles: locality records represented as unnamed mapped points or cited as river names in the original source, from which geographic coordinates had to be inferred.Purple stars: new records.