THAMNODYNASTES STRIGATUS (Coastal House Snake). DIET

THALER, RAFAELA; FOLLY, HENRIQUE; SESTITO, GUILHERME ALEXANDRE; ADAMS, GUILHERME BARD; PEREIRA, ELVIS ALMEIDA

HERPETOLOGICAL REVIEW

SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES

Año: 2018 vol. 49

0018-084X

Thamnodynastes strigatus is a nocturnal opistoglyph snake that is widely distributed in South America, from southeastern and southern Brazil to Paraguay and Argentina (Franco and Ferreira 2002. Phyllomedusa 2:57?74). This species? diet is mainly comprised of frogs, and occasionally also fishes, lizards, mammals, and snakes (e.g., Bernarde et al. 2000. Brazil. J. Biol. 60:695?699; Ruffalo et al. 2003. Phyllomedusa 2:27?34; Dorigo et al. 2014. Herpetol. Notes 7:261?264). Here we report the first record of T. strigatus preying upon Leptodactylus fuscus (Fig. 1). We observed the predation event on 6 October 2010 during nocturnal fieldwork in a fragment of Atlantic Forest in Serafina Corrêa municipality, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil (28.7076°S, 51.8493°W, WGS84; 427 m elev.). The snake caught the prey by the head and consumed it over a period of 14 min. Many anuran families have been reported as prey of T. strigatus, including Hylidae, Hylodidae, Bufonidae, Cycloramphidae, Ranidae, Brachycephalidae, and Leptodactylidae. Among the Leptodactylidae, the genus Leptodactylus is represented by L. gracilis, L. latrans (Dorigo et al., op. cit.), and now L. fuscus.