Letheobia
| Letheobia | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification 
| |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Suborder: | Serpentes |
| Family: | Typhlopidae |
| Subfamily: | Afrotyphlopinae |
| Genus: | Letheobia Cope, 1868 |
Letheobia is a genus of blind snakes in the family Typhlopidae.[1]
Geographic range
The genus Letheobia is endemic to Africa.[1]
Taxonomy
In 1869, the genus Letheobia was established by
Letheobia pallida from Zanzibar, but later also including Letheobia caeca (originally Onychocephalus cæcus Duméril, 1856) from Gabon. Wilhelm Peters, in 1874 when describing Onychocephalus lumbriciformis from Zanzibar and in 1878 Typhlops unitaeniatus from Kenya, considered Letheobia to be a subgenus. Nonetheless, in 1881, Peters selected Letheobia caeca Duméril as the type species for the genus. In 1883, Boulenger decided that at best Letheobia was a subgenus of Typhlops, and placed it as a junior synonym. Later in reconstructing Rhinotyphlops in 1974, Roux-Estève moved all of Letheobia species into Rhinotyphlops, mostly into her Groups IV, V and VI. However, molecular studies in the 2000s showed that Rhinotyphlops, as conceived by Roux-Estève (1974), was polyphyletic, and that many if not all of Groups V and VI constituted a separate genus, for which the name Letheobia had priority.[2] In 2007 Broadley and Wallach formally revived the genus Letheobia. In 2013, Pyron et al. considered with some certainty that Letheobia was a sister group to the combined genera Afrotyphlops and Megatyphlops, while the three were then sister to Rhinotyphlops, and the four were the sister to Typhlops.[3]
Species
The genus Letheobia contains the following 37 species which are recognized as being valid.[4]
- Letheobia acutirostrata (Andersson, 1916)
- Letheobia akagerae Dehling, Hinkel, Ensikat, Babilon & E. Fischer, 2018
- Letheobia angeli (Guibé, 1952)
- Letheobia caeca (A.H.A. Duméril, 1856)
- Letheobia coecatus Jan, 1864
- Letheobia crossii (Boulenger, 1893)
- Letheobia debilis (Joger, 1990)
- Letheobia decorosus (Buchholz & W. Peters, 1875)
- Letheobia episcopus (Franzen & Wallach, 2002)
- Letheobia erythraea (Scortecci, 1928)
- Letheobia feae(Boulenger, 1906)
- Letheobia gracilis (Sternfeld, 1910)
- Letheobia graueri (Sternfeld, 1912)
- Letheobia jubana Broadley & Wallach, 2007
- Letheobia kibarae (de Witte, 1953)
- Letheobia largeni Broadley & Wallach, 2007
- Letheobia leucosticta(Boulenger, 1898)
- Letheobia lumbriciformis (W. Peters, 1874)
- Letheobia manni (Loveridge, 1941)
- Letheobia mbeerensis Malonza, Bauer & Ngwava, 2016
- Letheobia newtoni (Bocage, 1890)
- Letheobia pallida Cope, 1869
- Letheobia pauwelsi Wallach, 2005
- Letheobia pembana Broadley & Wallach, 2007
- Letheobia praeocularis (Stejneger, 1894)
- Letheobia rufescens (Chabanaud, 1916)
- Letheobia simonii (Boettger, 1879)
- Letheobia somalica (Boulenger, 1895)
- Letheobia stejnegeri(Loveridge, 1931)
- Letheobia sudanensis (Schmidt, 1923)
- Letheobia swahilica Broadley & Wallach, 2007
- Letheobia toritensis Broadley & Wallach, 2007
- Letheobia uluguruensis (Barbour & Loveridge, 1928)
- Letheobia weidholzi Wallach & Gemel, 2018
- Letheobia wittei (Roux-Estève, 1974)
- Letheobia zenkeriSternfeld, 1908
Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Letheobia.
Etymology
The specific name, pauwelsi, is in honor of Belgian herpetologist Olivier Sylvain Gérard Pauwels.[5]
References
- ^ a b Wallach, Van (2005) "Letheobia pauwelsi, a new species of blindsnake from Gabon (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)." African Journal of Herpetology 54 (1): 85-91.
- ^ Broadley, Donald G.; Wallach, Van (2007). "A review of East and Central African species of Letheobia Cope, revived from the synonymy of Rhinotyphlops Fitzinger, with descriptions of five new species (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)". Zootaxa. 1515: 31–68. Abstract
- PMID 23627680.
- ^ Genus Letheobia at The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Letheobia pauwelsi, p. 202).
Further reading
- Cope ED (1868). "Observations on REPTILES of the Old World. Art. II". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 20: 316-323. (Letheobia, new genus, p. 322).
- Roux-Estève R (1974). "Révision systématique des Typhlopidae d'Afrique. Reptilia. Serpentes ". Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle Nouvelle Série – Série A, Zoologie, Paris 87: 1-313. (in French).