Scincella devorator ( Darevsky, Orlov & Ho, 2004 )

Scincella devorator ( Darevsky, Orlov & Ho, 2004) View in CoL

Specimen examined.

• One adult female, collected on 28 July 2023 on the forest trail near Vua Peak (21 ° 03 ' 38.1 " N, 105 ° 21 ' 48.7 " E, at an elevation of 1105 m), Ba Vi NP, Vietnam GoogleMaps .

Description.

Morphological characteristics of the specimens from Ba Vi NP agreed with the descriptions of Darevsky et al. (2004) and Pham et al. (2015): SVL 56.5 mm, TaL 76.1 mm (n = 1, female). Head longer than wide; rostral wider than high; supranasals absent; prefrontals separated from each other by frontal; parietals in contact posteriorly; three pairs nuchal scales, enlarged; two loreals; eight supraciliaries; four supraoculars; one primary temporal; two secondary temporals; a large, undivided, opaque window in lower eyelid; seven supralabials, the fifth and sixth below the eye; ear opening without projecting lobules; tympanum deeply sunk; mental wider than long; six infralabials; postmental undivided; 28 rows of midbody scales; scales of two vertebral rows on the neck widened; paravertebral scales 69; 65 transverse rows of ventrals, smooth; precloacals two, enlarged; medial subcaudals widened; limbs short, pentadactyl; fingers and toes meeting when adpressed; subdigital lamellae under fourth finger 14 and 17 under fourth toe. In life, dorsum and tail base lightly brownish gray, with a black, wide vertebral stripe and two lightly gray, clear bands extending from parietals to base of tail; a distinct black stripe from behind the eye to hind limb in upper lateral zone with; venter and under surface of tail base lightly cream (Fig. 3 View Figure 3 ). In preservative, dorsum and tail base brownish gray, with a dark, wide vertebral stripe and two silver-gray clear bands extending from parietals to base of tail; a distinct dark stripe from behind the eye to hind limb in upper lateral zone; venter and under surface of tail base cream.

Ecological notes.

The specimen was found at 10: 15 am under a carpet of fallen leaves at an elevation of 960 m a. s. l. The surrounding habitat was a disturbed evergreen forest of medium hardwood and shrub. The humidity was approximately 70–80 %, and the air temperature ranged from 26 to 30 ° C.

Potential distribution.

MaxEnt models showed reasonable prediction power for the distribution of the skinks, with average AUC values> 0.87 for S. devorator . The optimal model had the regularization multiplier value of 2.0 and a combination of linear and quadratic feature classes and an AUC value of 0.8967. However, as the number of localities used in the modeling process of this species was quite small, the model result should be interpreted with great caution, especially in the edge areas. The model also encompassed all known records of the skink, including new localities (Fig. 4 View Figure 4 ). The model also showed that the potential distribution of S. devorator can be as large as 130,000 km 2, significantly expanding its known range compared to the IUCN range map.