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{
    "pk": 50587,
    "title": "Distribution and habitat suitability of <em>Zamenis longissimus</em> exhibiting dark colourations, with a new record from Northwestern Italy",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "<p>Dark colour aberrations in reptiles are rarely mapped and poorly understood. We document the first axanthism-like Aesculapian snake (<em>Zamenis longissimus</em>) from Lombardy, Italy, and merge this record with 44 earlier reports from the literature and iNaturalist. An ensemble ecological niche model calibrated with three uncorrelated WorldClim variables (i.e., mean annual temperature, mean diurnal temperature range and annual precipitation) achieved good performance (AUC = 0.84 ± 0.04; TSS = 0.58 ± 0.08). Mean diurnal temperature range emerged as the strongest predictor, with suitability increasing in warmer regions that experience smaller day–night thermal amplitudes. Predicted hotspots for the dark morph include the Atlantic coasts of Spain and France, the Tyrrhenian margin from Liguria into Piedmont, the eastern Adriatic littoral, and Black Sea coastlines of Russia, Georgia and Turkish Thrace. These areas largely coincide with published and citizen-science records, lending confidence to model outputs despite the sparse dataset. Anyway, the genetic basis and fitness effects of this colour remain untested; directed surveys and molecular work in the predicted zones are now needed. Our map offers a concise guide for future sampling.</p>",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "Creative Commons Attribution 4.0",
        "short_name": "CC BY 4.0",
        "text": "Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.\n\nNo additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.",
        "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "colour anomaly"
        },
        {
            "word": "snake"
        },
        {
            "word": "habitat suitability"
        },
        {
            "word": "Colubridae"
        },
        {
            "word": "Europe"
        },
        {
            "word": "Melanism"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Articles",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/85g3s82f",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Luca",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Colla",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Imasha",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Dolamulla Hewa Kankanamge",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Federico",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Storniolo",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of Pavia",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Matteo Riccardo",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Di Nicola",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Liguria e Valle d'Aosta, Via Bologna 148, 10154 Torino",
            "department": "Genetics and genomics"
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": "2025-08-07T17:26:28.008000+02:00",
    "date_accepted": "2025-08-29T10:32:42.426000+02:00",
    "date_published": "2025-10-10T07:00:00+02:00",
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        "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/biogeographia/article/50587/galley/40053/download/"
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}