“Anteaters” under the airport: a slender new species of blindsnake, genus Indotyphlops, from Timor-Leste (Scolecophidia: Typhlopidae: Asiatyphlopinae)

Abstract

We describe a slender immature female blindsnake from the main airport in Dili, Timor-Leste, as a new species of Indotyphlops, adding a third species to the country's known blindsnake fauna of Sundatyphlops polygrammicus (Schlegel, 1839) and Virgotyphlops braminus (Daudin, 1803). The new species has the following combination of characteristics: small size (snout–vent length = 119 mm), slender body (relative body thickness 71), T-V supralabial imbrication pattern, relative rostral width 0.36, 434 middorsal scales, relative tail length 1.7%, absence of enlarged occipital scales, and apical spine absent. The snake was found in an ant nest under several flat rocks near the fuel depot of Nicolau Lobato International Airport, and this habitat and the discovery in a busy location with heavy human impacts indicate that the species is likely a primarily subterranean myrmeco- or termitophage.