Range: Western Suriname and French Guiana, extreme northern Brazil

 

Commonly known as the collared blind snake, this northern South American species is a Guyana Shield endemic and given its own genus due to its slender and lopsidedly hooked hemipenal structures, occipital bones forming the spinal cord opening in the skull without involvement of a “basioccipital” bone, and a few other skeletal and scale structural details. It is a very small species, rarely exceeding 12 cm in length, with a slender cylindric build (often thickest near the back third), and a head that is rounded, slightly taper-flattened, and barely wider than the neck. The tail is also very short and blunt, barely tapered at all before the short conical terminal spine. Dorsal scale count is 151-163, scale row count 14 reduced to 10 caudally. Coloration is generally medium to deep brown with each scale thinly edged darker, ventral slightly paler. A bright yellow spot sits on the front of the rostral scale, mirrored by a large (particularly ventrally) yellow tail tip blotch. Additionally, a collar of 0.5-3 scales wide also runs nearly all the way around the neck in bright yellow, split by a dorsal break. A distinctive iridescence to all scales may make the snake look black with a bluish or greenish hue.

 

Habitat: throughout the eastern Guyana Shield from sea level to at least 830 meters in elevation, in undisturbed or open rainforest. May be found under leaf litter, fallen logs and rocks, or under bark, but usually places with little understory growth and thick leaf layers.

 

Prey: likely small soft-bodied invertebrates such as ant and termite larvae.

 

Lifespan and reproduction: lifespan unknown, likely under 10 years. Oviparous.

 

Sources: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/219019895 Author Maël Dewynter under https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
https://repository.naturalis.nl/pub/318397/ZM1977051007.pdf
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/1161317-Habrophallos-collaris
Martins, A. et al. (2019). From the inside out: Discovery of a new genus of threadsnakes

based on anatomical and molecular data, with discussion of the leptotyphlopid hemipenial morphology. Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research57: 840-863.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358632737_Epictia_collaris_Hoogmoed_1977_Reptilia_Squamata_Leptotyphlopidae_new_record_for_the_herpetofauna_of_Amapa_and_Brazil_with_additional_localities_in_French_Guiana_and_a_distribution_map