Letheobia

Letheobia is a genus of blind snakes in the family Typhlopidae.[1]

Letheobia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Suborder: Serpentes
Family: Typhlopidae
Subfamily: Afrotyphlopinae
Genus: Letheobia
Cope, 1868

Geographic range

The genus 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 38 species which are recognized as being valid.[4]

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
  1. Wallach, Van (2005) "Letheobia pauwelsi, a new species of blindsnake from Gabon (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)." African Journal of Herpetology 54 (1): 85-91.
  2. 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
  3. Pyron, Robert Alexander; Burbrink, Frank T.; Wiens, John J. (2013). "A phylogeny and revised classification of Squamata, including 4161 species of lizards and snakes" (PDF). BMC Evolutionary Biology. 13 (1): 93–145. doi:10.1186/1471-2148-13-93. PMC 3682911. PMID 23627680.
  4. Genus Letheobia at The Reptile Database. www.reptile-database.org.
  5. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Letheobia pauwelsi, p. 202).

Further reading
  • Cope ED (1868). "Observations on REPTILES of the Old World. Art. II". Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia 20: 316-323. (Letheobia, new genus, p. 322).
  • Roux-Estève R (1974). "Révision systématique des Typhlopidae d'Afrique. Reptilia. Serpentes ". Mém. nation. Hist. nat., Paris, (sér. A) 87: 1-313. (in French).
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