New paper in Herpetology Notes

26.01.2021

Predation by Leptophis ahaetulla (Serpentes: Colubridae) on Osteocephalus cabrerai (Anura: Hylidae), with a description of its distress call

Chaloupka S & Rodríguez C
Herpetology Notes, volume 14: 209-213 (2021)
published online on 26 January 2021

Abstract

On the 13th of February 2019 on a river island in the Nouragues nature reserve in French Guiana, an individual of L. ahaetulla was found feeding on an individual of O. cabreraiL. ahaetulla was observed grasping O. cabrerai from the backside, turning it around within the extended mouth and then swallowing it head-first. During the predation event, O. cabrerai produced high pitched distress calls, which were recorded. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first documented observation of L. ahaetulla feeding on species of Osteocephalus, including a distress call. Furthermore, our observation confirms previous findings about the “headfirst” ingestion of prey by L. ahaetulla (de Albuquerque et al., 2007).