Abstract:
We describe a new species of Trilepida Hedges 2011 from cloud forests of the extreme northern Ecuadorian Andes, Carchi province. Among other characters, the new species is distinguished from all congeners by having a subhexagonal ocular with its anterior border barely rounded at eye level, rostral reaching the anterior border of ocular scales in dorsal view, three supralabials, four or five infralabials, thicker body width, 203–214 middorsal scales, 12 scales around middle of tail, uniform gray dorsum, and gray venter with interspaces between scales cream. Morphologically, the new species is most similar to T. guayaquilensis and T. joshuai from Ecuador and Colombia, respectively. We also report the first records of T. macrolepis for the country from the lowland and foothill evergreen forests of northwestern Ecuador.
