Ninia hudsoni ( SERPENTES : DIPSADIDAE ) AS PREY OF THE CORAL SNAKE Micrurus hemprichii ortonii ( SERPENTES : ELAPIDAE ) IN NORTHWESTERN AMAZONIA *

Objective: To make a description of a predatory event by the Micrurus hemprichii ortonii coral snake on the Ninia hudsoni snake. Scope: Contribution to the knowledge of the natural history of Neotropical snakes, particularly in relation to trophic interactions. Methodology: Dissection in the laboratory. Main result: Th is is the fi rst record of the trophic interaction between M. h. ortonii and N. hudsoni. Conclusions: Th e relation between the total length of the prey and the snout-vent length of the predator was very high (>90%), indicating that this species of coral snake can ingest preys of great volume and size in relation to its own body.

In relation to other groups of less charismatic and colorful snakes, the natural history of coral snakes is relatively well known (ROZE, 1996;CAMPBELL & LAMAR, 2004;MARQUES et al., 2006MARQUES et al., , 2013)).Ophiophagy is a common and widespread feeding strategy amongst coral snakes (CAMPBELL & LAMAR, 2004;ROZE, 1996), which are chemically oriented to detect prey (ROZE 1996).Additionally, the venom composition and toxicity of some coral snake species are specifically oriented towards ophiophagy (SILVA & AIRD, 2001).
On 5 December of 2015 at 05:10 h four killed snakes were sighted at the base of a shrub, in a public park in the suburbs of the city of Florencia, department of Caquetá, Colombia (1°38´02.2´´N, 75°36´18´´ W, WGS84, 350 m. elevation).These were three specimens of N. hudsoni, and one M. hemprichii ortonii (472 mm snout-vent length [SVL] and 44 mm tail length [TL]) (Table 1).All the snakes were collected and deposited in the herpetological collection of the Museo de Historia Natural Universidad de la Amazonia (UAM-H).
The specimen of M. hemprichii ortonii (UAM-H 354), corresponds to a female found with its head damaged, which had been killed while swallowing one of the N. hudsoni individuals (UAM-H 353), and with only half the tail still protruding from the coral snake's mouth (Fig. 1A).Following dissection of the coral snake, we determined that the prey (346 mm SVL and 86 mm TL) was ingested headfirst (Fig. 1B, C) (Table 1).Despite the head damage of the M. hemprichii specimen, the ratio of prey total length [TTL] to predator SVL was very high, reaching 0.91 (Table 1, Fig. 1B).
The preyed individual of N. hudsoni is a Type IIb prey sensu CUNDALL & GREENE (2000), with an elongate and stout body relative to the predator.Other coralsnake species have been observed preying on large items, such as M. corallinus (MARQUES & SAZIMA, 1997) and M. paraensis (SOUZA et al., 2011).
Summary of morphological characteristics of Micrurus hemprichii ortonii and its Ninia hudsoni prey referred to in this paper.n/a spaces correspond to scales impossible to count owing to body damage.Bracketed numbers correspond to scales in contact with the orbit and the geneial scales, respectively.