Merten’s Amphisbaenid,

Amphisbaena mertensii Strauch, 1881

A deceased specimen was photographed on 27 March 2024 at Compañía Boquerón, Caazapá department (26°14’39’’S 56°15’10’’W) by Luz Benítez (Fig. 8), representing the first departmental record. The specimen could be confidently identified as this species based on the high number of tail rings (>25), greater than any other Paraguayan Amphisbaenid, in combination with the pigmentation being restricted to the anterior part of the scales and the number of body rings being within the range 220-250 (Vanzolini, 2002; Corrêa and Meneses, 2020). This is a widespread amphisbaenid in the Oriental region of Paraguay and has been previously reported from Alto Paraná, Amambay, Caaguazú, Canindeyú, Central, Guairá, Itapúa and San Pedro departments (Cabral and Weiler, 2014; Cacciali et al., 2016b; Smith et al., 2016; Goosen and Martínez, 2021). It is considered to be “Least Concern” in Paraguay (Martínez et al., 2020c).