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| Brasilotyphlus dubium
Correia, Nunes, Gamble, Maciel, Marques-Souza, et al., 2018
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Abstract
A third species of Brasilotyphlus, a siphonopid caecilian, is described based on six specimens from two twin mountains in Roraima state, northern Brazil. Brasilotyphlus dubium sp. nov. differs from all other congeners in having a combination of 123–129 primary annuli and 9–16 secondary annular grooves. The first molecular data were generated and analyzed for Brasilotyphlus, and the genus was recovered as monophyletic and nested within a paraphyletic Microcaecilia. The extent of genetic and taxonomic sampling, and moderate phylogenetic support are not considered sufficient enough to place Brasilotyphlus in the synonymy of Microcaecilia.
Key words: Brazil, caecilians, phylogeny, taxonomy
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| Brasilotyphlus dubium sp. nov. Specimen from the type series in life in dorsal view. |
Brasilotyphlus dubium sp. nov.
Etymology. The epithet dubium means “dubious”, reflecting our doubt whether or not Brasilotyphlus should be considered a synonym of Microcaecilia. For nomenclatural purposes, the species epithet is considered a noun in apposition.
Larissa L. Correia, Pedro M. S. Nunes, Tony Gamble, Adriano O. Maciel, Sergio Marques-Souza, Antoine Fouquet, Miguel T. Rodrigues and Tami Mott. 2018. A New Species of Brasilotyphlus (Gymnophiona: Siphonopidae) and A Contribution to the Knowledge of the Relationship Between Microcaecilia and Brasilotyphlus. Zootaxa. 4527(2); 186–196. DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4527.2.2
