Filling biogeographical gaps through wildlife roadkills: New distribution records for six snake species from Ecuador (Anilius scytale, Drymarchon corais, Erythrolamprus breviceps, Micrurus lemniscatus, Oxyrhopus vanidicus, Trilepida anthracina)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Monitoring wildlife roadkills is a valuable method to identify critical areas where animals are more susceptible to collision with vehicles, likewise, this type of work can let us know which species are more vulnerable to this human impact. Besides these relevant utilities used for mitigation purposes, this effort can provide very important information about the biology, ecology and biogeography of species. In this paper, we report new geographic records found while working on a road ecology study. These data increase the distribution of six snakes’ species (Anilius scytale, Drymarchon corais, Erythrolamprus breviceps, Micrurus lemniscatus, Oxyrhopus vanidicus and Trilepida anthracina), from which, four show scarce and almost inexistent historical records (Anilius scytale, Drymarchon corais, Erythrolamprus breviceps, and Trilepida anthracina). We encourage researchers, especially road ecologists, to notice and report these observations, which can be highly valuable for expanding the knowledge of species distributions, a key factor forconducting integral studies of fauna.