Endangered
Ialtris agyrtes
Ialtris agyrtes
Ialtris agyrtes, also known as the Barahona red-headed racer or the Barreras fanged snake, is a rare species of snake in the subfamily Dipsadinae of the family Colubridae endemic to the southwestern Dominican Republic.
Appearance
It is a small species of Ialtris with a nearly patternless, brown to tan dorsum. A pale whitish supralabial line is present, extending from the tip of the snout to the base of the head and with darker brown superior margins. The venter is also patternless, nearly white, and grading posteriorly to pale orange.
Range and habitat
Its range includes the southern foothills of the Sierra de Bahoruco mountain range in the Barahona Peninsula. As well as the lower elevations of Sierra Martín Garcia National Park. In these three locations the habitat is very similar, suggesting this species might be a specialist, inhabiting mid-elevation dry forests. Specimens have been found under stones, and organic debris among them the decaying rosettes of dead Agave that are particularly abundant in their habitat.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
The diet of this snake is known to include blind-snakes (family Typhlopidae), and it has been hypothesized that this species could have a specialized ophiophagous diet of fossorial snakes. Other blind-snakes of the genus Mitophis (family Leptotyphlopidae), as well as snake-like lizards (Wetmorena agasepsoides) are known to be sympatric with I. Agyrtes and could be part of its diet as well.
In crisis
I. Agyrtes is listed as Endangered by the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species, due to its limited distribution and the ongoing destruction of its habitat. An invasive species, the small Indian mongoose (Urva auropunctata) has been highly suspected to represent a threat for I. Agyrtes, given its diurnal and terrestrial habits. It is also possible that this has always been a rare species, and that populations are not declining, as it has never been reported to be abundant in past.
Ialtris agyrtes is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Ialtris agyrtes, Wikidata item Q3147220. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
