Sphenomorphus cryptotis Darevsky, Orlov & Ho, 2004

Pham, Anh Van, Le, Dzung Trung, Nguyen, Son Lan Hung, Ziegler, Thomas & Nguyen, Truong Quang, 2015, New provincial records of skinks (Squamata: Scincidae) from northwestern Vietnam, Biodiversity Data Journal 3, pp. 4284-4284 : 4284

Sphenomorphus cryptotis Darevsky, Orlov & Ho, 2004

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: HNUE MNR.26 ; individualCount: 1; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificNameID: Sphenomorphus cryptotis; scientificName: Sphenomorphuscryptotis; class: Reptilia; order: Squamata; family: Scincidae; genus: Sphenomorphus; specificEpithet: cryptotis; scientificNameAuthorship: Darevsky, Orlov & Ho, 2004; Location: country: Vietnam; countryCode: VN; stateProvince: Dien Bien; county: Muong Nhe; locality: Muong Nhe Nature Reserve, Sin Thau sector, Y Ma Ho stream ; verbatimElevation: 890 m; verbatimLatitude: 22°14'15"N; verbatimLongitude: 103°25'9.6"E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS84; Event: eventDate: February 18, 2013; eventRemarks: collected by DTL et al.; Record Level: language: en; collectionCode: Reptiles; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

Morphological characters (determination after Darevsky et al. 2004). Female: SVL 68.2 mm; TaL 116.8 mm. For further measurements and proportions see Table 1.

Head longer than wide; rostral wider than high; supranasals absent; prefrontals in contact with each other; parietals in contact posteriorly; loreals 2; supraoculars 4, followed by 2 postsupraoculars, anterior one divided; primary temporal single; secondary temporals 2, upper very large and overlapped by lower one; lower eyelid scaly; supralabials 7, the fifth and sixth below the eye, separated from the eye by one row of small scales; external ear openings superficial, without lobules; mental wider than long; infralabials 6; postmental undivided; midbody scales in 34 rows; dorsal scales between lateral stripes in ½ + 6 + ½ rows, smooth; paravertebral scales 71; ventrals in 75 transverse rows, smooth; precloacals 2, enlarged; medial subcaudals widened; limbs short, pentadactyl; fingers and toes meeting when adpressed; subdigital lamellae smooth, numbering 13 under fourth finger and 20 under fourth toe.

Coloration in alcohol. Dorsum and tail base yellowish brown with a vertebral row of large black spots; numerous indistinct white spots on the labials; lateral zone with a distinct dark stripe from behind the eye to tail base, with white spots; neck and throat white, with black dots; venter and underside anterior part of tail white, posterior part of tail yellowish brown (see Fig. 6).

Distribution

This species is currently known only from northern Vietnam: Lao Cai, Bac Giang, Quang Ninh, and Nghe An provinces (Nguyen et al., 2009). This is the first record of the species from Dien Bien Province.

Ecology

The adult female was collected at ca. 9:00 on a tree branch, ca. 1.2 m above the water in a rocky stream. The surrounding habitat was evergreen secondary forest of hardwood and shrub.