First record of Micrurus lemniscatus (Elapidae) in the state of Piauí, northeastern Brazil Primer registro de Micrurus lemniscatus (Elapidae) en el estado de Piauí, noreste de Brasil

Micrurus lemniscatus is widely distributed in South America


Micrurus lemniscatus ranges widely across northern
South America, and it has been recorded in Brazil from the Amazonian Forest, Cerrado, and Babassu Palm Forest biomes (Pires et al. 2021).Herein, we present the first record of the species for the state of Piauí in northeastern Brazil, from a novel ecotone between biomes.The M. lemniscatus specimen originated from the municipality of Pedro II (4°26' S, 41°28' W, 607 m elevation), which is located in a transition zone between the Cerrado and Caatinga biomes (IBGE 2019) known as the Serra dos Matões.We collected the adult female snake (snout-vent length 941 mm, tail length 48 mm; Fig. 1) from a residential yard on 6 May 2021 at about 09:00h, after it was killed by a domestic cat.We did not take tissue samples, but we fixed the entire specimen in 10% formalin and deposited it in the Biological Collection of the Instituto Federal do Piauí (CBPII-242) under collection permit SISBio #61838-4/21.
We identified the specimen using Pires et al. (2021), with later confirmation by N. J. Silva Jr., based on the presence of the following characters: 232 ventral scales; 24 subcaudal scales; ten body triads; one tail triad; snout black (rostral, internasals, first supralabial, and anterior portion of nasal scales); white transverse band passes through the posterior region of the nasal scales and second supralabial, reaching the anterior portion of the frontal and supraocular; gular region red; black triangular mark extends from mental scale to the first infralabial to the anterior portion of the anterior genial.Among coral snakes, only M. ibibob-  It also represents the first documentation of the species in a Cerrado/Caatinga ecotone.Because M. lemniscatus is potently venomous (Floriano et al. 2019), our report is relevant to epidemiology and public health in addition to its biogeographical and ecological importance.

AUTHOR'S CONTRIBUTION
SCMA, CAC, and FPS design and writing; SCMA and EBA obtaining data and descriptions; LRU writing and illustration; EBA photographs and review.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Comparison of the similar, co-occuring coral snakes Micrurus lemniscatus and M. ibiboboca.a-b.Body dorsal and ventral view, and c-d.head dorsal and ventral view of M. lemniscatus specimen CBPII-242 and e. head/body of live M. ibiboboca from the municipality of Pedro II, Piauí State, Brazil.Note the difference in snout tip coloration.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Geographic distribution of Micrurus lemniscatus based on Pires et al. (2021), including the new record from the municipality of Pedro II, Piauí State, Brazil.
with M. lemniscatus.We follow Pires et al. (2021) herein but see Hurtado Gómez et al. (2021) for an alternative view.