Lygodactylus bradfieldi Hewitt, 1932

Conradie, Werner, Bills, Roger & Branch, William R., 2016, The herpetofauna of the Cubango, Cuito, and lower Cuando river catchments of south-eastern Angola, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 126) 10 (2), pp. 6-36 : 24

Lygodactylus bradfieldi Hewitt, 1932

Bradfield’s Dwarf Day Gecko

Material: PEM R 20492 (32), and 20490‒1 (35). Comment: Pasteur (1965) revived Hewitt’s Namibian species after FitzSimons (1943) had treated it as a subspecies of L. capensis , and Loveridge (1944) had even placed it in the synonymy of the same species. Jacobsen (2011) affirmed features that distinguished the species and confirmed its presence in sympatry with L. capensis in western Limpopo Province, South Africa. Our material conforms to the features highlighted by Jacobsen (2011), and we therefore consider the survey records to represent the first for the Cuito drainage, and possibly the first confirmed records for Angola. Pasteur’s (1965) map did not show L. bradfieldi extending into southern Angola, and although he plotted six localities for L. capensis in south-west Angola, presumably based on records in Bocage (1895) and Monard (1937b), he did not discuss voucher material for any of his localities. Our specimens fill the large gap for the L. capensis complex in south-east Angola. Cryptic diversity within dwarf geckos is now well established (e.g., Travers et al. 2014), and the status of the isolated population of L. capensis in southwest Angola (see above) and its relationship to L. bradfieldi invites further study.