systematics of snakes of the dipsas oreas complex - BioOne

130 Bulletin Museum of Comparative Zoology, Vol. 158, No. 3
Stein (MVZ); Ronald Nussbaum and
Gregory Schneider (UMMZ); and Steve
Gotte, W. Ronald Heyer, Roy W. Mc-
Diarmid, Robert Wilson, and George R.
Zug (USNM). I especially thank Jesús
Córdova and César Aguilar for kindnesses
on visits to the MUSM.
Several individuals helped locate or clarify
localities for some specimens: Steve
Gotte, Roy W. McDiarmid, Charles W.
Myers, and Thomas S. Schulenberg. Myers
also provided the basemap used to prepare
Figure 8, provided data and photographs
for Dipsas sanctijohannis, and
shared ideas and information about Dipsas;
I am grateful for these exchanges and
for his generosity. Martin Henzl translated
a portion of Koepcke (1961). The Chicago
Zoological Society, especially through its
Director Emeritus George B. Rabb, has
supported my biodiversity studies, particularly
during completion of this research
and visits in 2004 to ANSP, MCZ, MUSM,
and USNM.
Field work was supported by the Field
Museum of Natural History (1987 expedition
to the Río Zaña Study Site), the
American Philosophical Society, the Putnam
Fund of the Museum of Comparative
Zoology, and a grant from Faculty of Arts
and Sciences of Harvard University. The
David Rockefeller Center for Latin American
Studies (Harvard University) provided
funds for attendance at the symposium Estratégias
para Bioconservación en el Norte
del Perú, held at the Universidad Antenor
Orrego, Trujillo (1995), at which some of
this work was presented; invitation to that
conference was extended by Abúndio Sagástegui
Alva, whose enthusiastic moral
and logistical support also made much of
the field work possible.
The field work would have been impossible
without the efforts and camaraderie
of my field companions: Pablo Chuna Mogollon,
Camilo Díaz, Michael O. Dillon,
the late Alwyn H. Gentry, Rosa Ortiz de
Gentry, José Guevarra Barreto, Segundo
Leiva, Pedro Lezama, Raul Quiroz, Abúndio
Sagástegui Alva, José Santisteban, and
Helena Siesniegas. The family of Francisco
Quiroz was especially supportive during
two field seasons at the Río Zaña Study
Site, and the support and friendship of
many strangers during field work in northern
Peru is much appreciated.
I am grateful to the Dirección General
Forestal y de Fauna del Perú and the Museo
de la Universidad Nacional de San
Marcos in Lima for their many years’ support
of my efforts to understand the biodiversity
of Peru. For discussions of plant
diversity, I thank Michael O. Dillon, the
late Alwyn H. Gentry, and Abundio Sagástegui
Alva. For very valuable comments on
the manuscript, I thank Harry W. Greene,
Charles W. Myers, and Jay M. Savage.
SPECIMENS EXAMINED AND LOCALITY
RECORDS
A few literature records are included
herein when there is reason to be assured
of the identity of the specimens, which is
rarely the case with South American species
of Dipsas. Some of these records are
discussed in the above species accounts
(see sections on Distribution). In addition
to specimens of the three species of the
oreas group, this list also includes material
of D. gracilis, D. latifasciata, and D. temporalis
examined during the course of this
study. This should aid future workers on
this genus because many of the identifications
in the literature are questionable
and much material has accumulated since
the group was last reviewed (Peters,
1960a). Discussion of some apparent problems
concerning the systematics of D.
gracilis and D. latifasciata is given in the
text. Other material relevant to the identity
of species in western Ecuador was listed
in Cadle and Myers (2003) (D. andiana,
D. nicholsi, and D. variegata).
Institutional abbreviations for museums
are as follows.
AMNH
ANSP
American Museum of Natural
History, New York
Academy of Natural Sciences
of Philadelphia