Hemigenius variabilis Dugès, 1888

Flores-Villela, Oscar, Ríos-Muñoz, César A., Magaña-Cota, Gloria E. & Quezadas-Tapia, Néstor L., 2016, Alfredo Dugès’ type specimens of amphibians and reptiles revisited, Zootaxa 4092 (1) : 47-48

Hemigenius variabilis Dugès, 1888 d

The species and the genus were apparently described on the basis of one specimen. One specimen, with no locality data according to Smith & Necker (1943) was present at MADUG when they reviewed the types of this collection. They redescribed it and presented photographs of the head and neck. Nevertheless, Dugès (1888d) mentioned “J’ai trouvé ce petit serpent à la Barranca de Portillo (Guadalajara) et aussi à Guanajuato.” (I found this little snake at the Barranca of Portillo (Guadalajara) and also in Guanajuato); this statement leads us to believe that Dugès had more than one specimen at hand when describing the species.

We were unable to find the specimen described by Smith & Necker (1943), despite checking all possible candidates in the collection; none coincides with measurements given by Smith & Necker (1943). The type is definitively lost.

Current valid name: Storeria storerioides (Cope, 1865) .