Trachylepis punctulata ( Bocage, 1872 )

Santos, Bruna S., Marques, Mariana P., Bauer, Aaron M. & Ceríaco, Luis M. P., 2021, Herpetological results of Francisco Newton’s Zoological Expedition to Angola (1903 – 1906): a taxonomic revision and new records of a forgotten collection, Zootaxa 5028 (1), pp. 1-80 : 25

Trachylepis punctulata ( Bocage, 1872)

Material (four specimens): Two adults and one juvenile specimen (MHNCUP/REP 263–265, formerly UP- MHNFCP-095000–095002; Fig. S44 ), collected from Mossâmedes [= Moçâmedes] [-15.20000º, 12.15000º, 24 m a.s.l.] Namibe Province, in 1905 ; one adult specimen (MHNCUP/REP 278, formerly UP-MHNFCP-017378), collected from Bahia dos Tigres [= Baía dos Tigres] [-16.58559º, 11.82709º, 98 m a.s.l.] Namibe province, date unknown .

Comments: Trachylepis punctulata is known from southwestern Angola ( Marques et al. 2018). Ferreira (1904, 1906) did not publish these specimens, however specimen MHNCUP/REP 278 was labeled as “ Trachylepis acutilabris ”, a misidentification most likely made by himself. Ceríaco et al. (2016a) cited the Newton Expedition specimens as congruent with their collections and commented that the locality “Mossamedes” most likely referred to Namibe Province as a whole, rather than the city. T. punctulata was, for a long time, considered a subspecies of Trachylepis variegata (Peters, 1870) , but a series of studies both on phylogeny and morphological characteristics have established the two taxa as different species ( Portik & Bauer 2012; Bates et al. 2014). Weinell et al. (2019) reported T. punctulata as paraphyletic with respect to T. variegata .

Figures

FIGURE S44. Specimen of Trachylepis punctulata (MHNCUP/REP 263), from Moçâmedes. Photo by Bruna Santos.