Philothamnus angolensis Bocage, 1882

Conradie, Werner, Baptista, Ninda L., Verburgt, Luke, Keates, Chad, Harvey, James, Júlio, Timóteo & Neef, Götz, 2021, Contributions to the herpetofauna of the Angolan Okavango-Cuando-Zambezi river drainages. Part 1: Serpentes (snakes), Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 292) 15 (2), pp. 244-278 : 257

Philothamnus angolensis Bocage, 1882

Angolan Green Snake ( Fig. 12 , Map 10)

Material: PEM R 23518, 33 km W of Menongue, Cuelei River, Cuando Cubango Province, -14.70511° 17.38014°, 1,500 m asl; PEM R 23263, Cuchi Gorge, Cuando Cubango Province, -14.59000° 16.90758°, 1,350 m asl. Description: Dorsal scales smooth and in 15 rows at midbody; 132–175 ventrals; 88–103 paired subcaudals; weak posterior ventral keeling; 1 preocular; 2 postoculars; temporals 1+1; 9 supralabials, with 4 th –6 th entering the orbit; 10 infralabials, with first five in contact with the anterior chin shield; cloacal scale divided. Largest female: 588 + 262 mm ( PEM R 23518); largest male: 290 + 130 mm ( PEM R 23392). Habitat and natural history notes: All specimens were collected from the Cubango River and its tributaries to the west of the study area, which is dominated by rockier substrate and dry Miombo woodland. Comment: First described from Capangombe in Angola as Philothamnus angolensis ( Bocage 1882) , but later considered to be part of Philothamnus irregularis by most authors, including Bocage himself ( Bocage 1895; Parker 1936; Monard 1937b; Bogert 1940; Hellmich 1957b; Laurent 1964). Hughes (1985) resolved the taxonomic confusion by restricting P. irregularis to West Africa and reinstating P. angolensis for the southern and eastern populations. Many of the historical records from Angola referred to as P. irregularis are now assignable to either P. angolensis or P. hoplogaster . Philothamnus angolensis is widespread across most of southern, central, and eastern Africa ( Branch 1998; Spawls et al. 2018). Within Angola, the species is known mostly from central and western Angola, with isolated records in the north-east ( Marques et al. 2018). Although no records are known from south-eastern Angola, there are records from the Okavango Delta in Botswana and the Zambezi Region (= Caprivi Strip) in Namibia ( Auerbach 1987; Broadley and Blaylock 2013), and thus the presence of this species is expected in south-eastern Angola. A recent virtual museum record (ReptileMap 166590) from the Angolan side of the Cubango River, just west of Calai, fills the gap between the southern Angolan and Namibian records.

Figures

Fig. 12. Philothamnus angolensis from Cueli River, west of Menongue. Photo by Luke Verburgt.