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Length-mass relationships among an assemblage of tropical snakes in Costa Rica

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2009

Craig Guyer  and
Maureen A. Donnelly
Craig Guyer
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA
Maureen A. Donnelly
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA
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Abstract

Length-mass relationships within an assemblage of tropical snakes are used to describe morphological groups. We report patterns of body size based on length and mass measurements of 603 individual snakes of 27 species captured at La Selva, Costa Rica from March 1982 through August 1984. This assemblage of snakes is composed of at least four morphological groups each of which consists of species with similar habitat preferences. These groups are heavy-bodied terrestrial forms, light-bodied arboreal forms, long-tailed leaf-litter forms, and forms of unextreme relative mass and tail length. This tropical snake assemblage is more diverse in species richness and morphological diversity than a temperate assemblage.

Keywords

body lengthbody massCosta RicamorphologyReptiliasnakestail lengthtail loss
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , February 1990 , pp. 65 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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