Amphisbaena kingii (king’s worm lizard). Predation

Abstract

Amphisbaena kingii is a medium-sized amphisbaenid that occurs from southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay to northeastern Chubut in Patagonia, Argentina (Cei, 1993. Reptiles del noroeste, nordestey este de la Argentina. Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali Torino, Monographie 14:1–949), with little known about its ecology, including its predators. Here we report a predation observation on this species by a mammal from southern Argentina.On 6 May 2024, at 1600 h, we observed an adult A. kingii (SVL = 229 mm) being preyed upon by an adult Pichi (Zaedyus pichiy), or dwarf armadillo, in the Río Negro province, El Cuy Department (39.3006°S, 68.5798°W, WGS 84, 540 m elev.), Argentina. When we first saw the armadillo it had already captured the lizard and was in the process of eating it. The armadillo was biting to A.kingii with its molar region and when it noticed our presence, it dropped the prey and run away quickly, leaving the abandoned lizard which was immediately collected. Although the A. kingii specimenwas recovered whole and still alive, it had clear chewing marks 75 mm from the neck.To our knowledge this is the first record of predation on A. kingii. Pichi’s are common to this region of Argentina and known to be opportunistic omnivores that feed insects, arachnid, fungi, vegetal material and vertebrates such as small lizards and small mammals (Superina and Abba 2014. Mamm. Species 46:1–10).The specimens of A. kingii (MPCN-H 1083) were deposited in the herpetological Collection Patagonian Museum of Natural Sciences "Juan Carlos Salgado", General Roca, Río Negro, Argentina.