Length-Mass Relationships Among an Assemblage of Tropical Snakes in Costa Rica Article

Guyer, C, Donnelly, MA. (1990). Length-Mass Relationships Among an Assemblage of Tropical Snakes in Costa Rica . JOURNAL OF TROPICAL ECOLOGY, 6(1), 65-76. 10.1017/S0266467400004041

cited authors

  • Guyer, C; Donnelly, MA

authors

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. © 1990, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

publication date

  • January 1, 1990

published in

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

start page

  • 65

end page

  • 76

volume

  • 6

issue

  • 1