Leptotyphlops dissimilis (Bocage)

Published, First, 2007, A revision of the genus Leptotyphlops in northeastern Africa and southwestern Arabia (Serpentes: Leptotyphlopidae), Zootaxa 1408, pp. 1-78 : 49

Leptotyphlops dissimilis (Bocage)

Stenostoma dissimile Bocage, 1886 , J. Sci. Math. Phys. Nat. Lisboa 11: 174. Type locality: White Nile, central Africa [= Sudan], holotype, collected by Peteani & Steinberg, destroyed by fire in 1978 (formerly MBL) .

Stenostoma assimile (sic) — Bocage, 1897: 199.

Glauconia dissimilis — Boulenger, 1890: 92, 1893:70, 1915b: 643; Werner, 1907: 42, 1917 a: 199.

Stenostoma assimile (sic) — Bocage, 1897: 199.

Leptotyphlops dissimile — Flower, 1933: 803.

Leptotyphlops dissimilis — Hahn, 1978: 479, 1980: 12.

Diagnosis. Distinguished from all other African Leptotyphlops by having three supralabials, the second excluding the ocular from the upper lip, but based on a single specimen in poor condition ( Bocage, 1897); otherwise the ocular is excluded from the lip only in the five species of the Leptotyphlops bilineatus species group in the West Indies ( Thomas et al., 1985). Subcaudals 30; total length/diameter ratio 42; total length/tail length ratio 11.5.

Remarks. An aberrant male specimen of Leptotyphlops bicolor (Jan & Sordelli) from Mole National Park, Ghana (NMZB 12304), agrees with the type of L. dissimilis in supralabial arrangement, but it has the short tail typical of L. bicolor (11 subcaudals) and Wallach dissected it and found that its visceral arrangement agreed with that species, which has (together with L. broadleyi ) a number of unique visceral synapomorphies ( Wallach & Hahn, 1997) and a solid skull with fused parietal bones (AMNH 115863 Tapoa, Niger: Broadley, 2004).