Letheobia
Template:Short description Template:Automatic taxobox
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 Edward Drinker Cope based primarily on two specimens of 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)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia akagerae Dehling, Hinkel, Ensikat, Babilon & E. Fischer, 2018Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia angeli (Guibé, 1952)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia caeca (A.H.A. Duméril, 1856)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia coecatus Jan, 1864Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia crossii (Boulenger, 1893)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia debilis (Joger, 1990)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia decorosus (Buchholz & W. Peters, 1875)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia episcopus (Franzen & Wallach, 2002)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia erythraea (Scortecci, 1928)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia feae (Boulenger, 1906)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia gracilis (Sternfeld, 1910)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia graueri (Sternfeld, 1912)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia jubana Broadley & Wallach, 2007Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia kibarae (de Witte, 1953)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia largeni Broadley & Wallach, 2007Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia leucosticta (Boulenger, 1898)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia lumbriciformis (W. Peters, 1874)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia manni (Loveridge, 1941)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia mbeerensis Malonza, Bauer & Ngwava, 2016Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia newtoni (Bocage, 1890)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia pallida Cope, 1869Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia pauwelsi Wallach, 2005Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia pembana Broadley & Wallach, 2007Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia praeocularis (Stejneger, 1894)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia rufescens (Chabanaud, 1916)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia simonii (Boettger, 1879)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia somalica (Boulenger, 1895)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia stejnegeri (Loveridge, 1931)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia sudanensis (Schmidt, 1923)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia swahilica Broadley & Wallach, 2007Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia toritensis Broadley & Wallach, 2007Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia uluguruensis (Barbour & Loveridge, 1928)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia weidholzi Wallach & Gemel, 2018Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia wittei (Roux-Estève, 1974)Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia wrayi Malonza, 2024Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
- Letheobia zenkeri Sternfeld, 1908Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".
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
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- ↑ a b Wallach, Van (2005) "Letheobia pauwelsi, a new species of blindsnake from Gabon (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)." African Journal of Herpetology 54 (1): 85-91.
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1". Abstract
- ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
- ↑ Genus Letheobia at The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.
- ↑ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. Template:ISBN. (Letheobia pauwelsi, p. 202).
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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).