Contia mcmahoni, WALL, 1911

Rajabizadeh, Mahdi, Nagy, Zoltán T., Adriaens, Dominique, Avci, Aziz, Masroor, Rafaqat, Schmidtler, Josef, Nazarov, Roman, Esmaeili, Hamid Reza & Christiaens, Joachim, 2016, Alpine-Himalayan orogeny drove correlated morphological, molecular, and ecological diversification in the Persian dwarf snake (Squamata: Serpentes: Eirenis persicus), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 176, pp. 878-913 : 904

CONTIA MCMAHONI WALL, 1911

Holotype

Originally deposited in the Quetta Museum, Pakistan, but later destroyed ( Smith, 1943). Sanyal & Talwar (1975) considered one of the syntypes as the lectotype (catalogue number ZSI 16624, collection of the Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta, India). For further discussion see Mahlow et al. (2013).

Diagnosis

N = 5. 204–238 (x = 214) ventrals; 91–96 (x = 94) subcaudals; ratio of the tail length over total length 30.64–32.00 (x = 31.20); 13/15/13 dorsal scale rows on the anterior, mid, and posterior dorsal body; seven supralabials.

Dorsal background colour light brown, body without dorsal pattern but the bases of the anterior dorsal scales are darker than the rest of scales; head colour is a little darker than the body; the ventral surface of the body is uniform whitish.

Distribution

Distributed across the Suleiman Mountains in central Pakistan (localities indicated by plus symbols 1 to 5 in Fig. 2 ).

Figures

Figure 2. All available distribution records of the Eirenis persicus species group. Circles indicate the E. persicus specimens, with the persicus morph bearing unicoloured dorsal scales; squires indicate specimens from eastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, and southern and western Pakistan, having both persicus morph that base of their anterior dorsal scales are darker, and walteri morph; stars indicate specimens referred to Eirenis mcmahoni (Wall, 1911); plus symbols indicate specimens in north-eastern Pakistan, having both persicus morphs that base of their anterior dorsal scales are darker, and with walteri morph; asterisks indicate specimens with the novum pattern; triangles indicate specimens of the nigrofasciatus morph. Circle 29 indicates the type locality of Cyclophis persicus Anderson, 1872; squire 2 indicates the type locality of Pseudocyclophis walteri Boettger, 1888; squire 7 indicates the type locality of Contia zebrina Wall, 1923; triangle 6 indicates the type locality of Contia persica var. nigrofasciata Nikolsky, 1907; star 3 indicates the type locality of Contia angusticeps Boulenger, 1894; plus symbols 2–5 indicate the type series localities of Contia mcmahoni Wall, 1911. For more details, see Appendix 1.