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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Late Pleistocene snakes (Squamata: Serpentes) from Abaco, The Bahamas

Mead, Jim I., Steadman, David W. 01 December 2017 (has links)
The late Pleistocene snake fossils from Sawmill Sink (Abaco, The Bahamas) represent five taxa: blind or thread snake (Scolecophidia indet.: either Leptotyphlopidae or Typhlopidae); Abaco boa (Boidae: Chilabothrus cf. exsul); rat snake (Colubridae: Pantherophis sp.); water snake (Natricidae: Nerodia sp.); and Cuban racer (Dipsadidae: Cubophis cf. vudii). Scolecophidia, Chilabothrus exsul, and Cubophis vudii still exist on Abaco and have been previously recovered in fossil deposits in the West Indies. In contrast, no forms of Pantherophis or Nerodia have been reported as fossils anywhere in the West Indies until now. This is the first evidence of any indigenous species of Pantherophis (living or extinct) in the Caribbean, whereas the only other indigenous Nerodia in the West Indies is the extant N. clarkii along the northern coast of Cuba. In being present on Abaco in late Pleistocene but not Holocene contexts, Pantherophis sp. and Nerodia sp. resemble 17 species that apparently did not survive the dramatic changes in climate, habitat, and land area associated with the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition in The Bahamas. It is likely that Pleistocene fossils of both Pantherophis and Nerodia will be found eventually on other Bahamian islands. With the discovery of these two snakes, the vertebrate fauna of Sawmill Sink now stands at 97 species, by far the richest in the West Indies.

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