Stegonotus parvus ( Meyer, 1874:137 )

Kaiser, Christine M., Kaiser, Hinrich & O’Shea, Mark, 2018, The taxonomic history of Indo-Papuan groundsnakes, genus Stegonotus Duméril et al., 1854 (Colubridae), with some taxonomic revisions and the designation of a neotype for S. parvus (Meyer, 1874), Zootaxa 4512 (1), pp. 1-73 : 30-31

Stegonotus parvus ( Meyer, 1874:137)

Taxonomic status. Valid. Syntypes destroyed, no type material available.

Synonyms. None.

Original name. Lycodon parvus Meyer, 1874:137 . The species name parvus is a Latin word meaning “small” and, other than to describe the small size of the specimens collected, it is not obvious why Meyer would have selected this name 13. The species description was presented in German.

Syntypes. MTKD 876 ( Table 1) . According to Schüz (1929), two specimens had been accessioned under this single number. These were destroyed in the Second World War, during the Allied air raids on Dresden on 13–15 February 1945, along with most other herpetological specimens at the MTKD.

Type locality. “Neu-Guinea, Jobi” [Yapen Island 14, Papua Province, Indonesia].

Collection. Meyer (1887) specified that the collection on Yapen was made at Ansus, a settlement on the south shore of the island (ca. 1.7341°S, 135.8263°E), and Meyer (1875) gave 8 April 1873 as his arrival date there. In his hypercritical review of Meyer’s reports, Wichmann (1910 15) gave 8–29 April 1873 as the specific dates for the visit to Ansus, and these dates correspond to those provided by Meyer himself. Meyer (1875) also stated that the collection activities spanned 19 days. Based on his account, it appears the arrival occurred late in the day and the following day was spent with negotiations; the departure occurred at dawn on 29 April. Therefore, specimen collection on Yapen must have occurred on 10–28 April, during which time Meyer collected 30 species of amphibians and reptiles ( Meyer 1875).

Key characteristics of the syntypes. Given that the syntypes were destroyed, we are not able to determine which one of the two specimens served as the origin for the scale counts. The only mention in the original description that two specimens were, in fact, utilized is in the fourth sentence, where Meyer commented that “in einem Exemplar von den zweien vorhandenen” [in one specimen of the two that are available] there was a fusion of the prefrontals. The following values were clearly based on data from only one of the syntypes: O (O) mm SVL + O (O) mm TL = O (O) mm TTL. V = 177 (O), SC = 100 (O), SCR = 0.36 (O), D = O-17-O (O), SL E = 3+4 (O), SL = 7 (O), IL = O (O), IL G = O (O). There were no data provided for the second specimen. In contrast to our other accounts, we have not denoted whether the ventral scale counts in this list belong to a male or female specimen. Based on the high SCR value, we believe that the examined individual was most likely a male .

Key characteristics of the species. Given that only two specimens of this species are known with certainty (the syntypes), and with both of these having been destroyed, the basis for any species-level diagnosis is all too

13. It is perhaps relevant that Meyer named his two new species parvus (small) and magnus (large). This could indicate that Meyer considered magnus large compared to parvus from Yapen, even though we can now state that magnus is not necessarily large compared to other mainland Stegonotus .

14. The locality of Yapen Island has also been spelled “Japen.” The latter is, however, an Anglicized version of a Papuan name, used predominantly by the Allied Forces during the Second World War and having entered the mainstream of location names as a consequence. We prefer to use the original spelling.

15. During his last years as director of the Dresden museum, Meyer was the target of anti-Semitic intrigue ( Fritz 2002), which appears to have brought his long and highly successful term as a scientist to an undeservedly premature end. To the heading of his account, Wichmann (1910) included a footnote to disclose that Meyer’s real name was Aron Baruch Meyer, a name indicating a Jewish heritage. The entire text thereafter is composed of accusations against Meyer, asserting his incompetence and untruthfulness, but generally amounting to hearsay presented as analysis. Wichmann ended his account with a nasty flourish, declaring: “In der Wissenschaft wird aber der Name dieses Mannes, dem die Wahrhaftigkeit niemals etwas anderes als eine abgegriffene Ware gewesen ist, als ein abschreckendes Beispiel noch über Jahrhunderte hinaus fortleben.” [The name of this man, to whom truthfulness was never anything but a worn-out commodity, will live on in science for centuries to come as an off-putting example.]

limited. We can state that, compared to all other species of Stegonotus , S. parvus has a low ventral count (<180) combined with a high subcaudal count (100), resulting in a notably high SCR value (0.36) that indicates a relatively long tail compared to overall body length. Other than that, none of the characters listed in the original description, alone or in combination, are useful to unequivocally delineate this species from other New Guinean forms.

Comments. Meyer (1887) listed Lycodon parvus as a member of the family Lycodontidae and in the synonymy of L. lividus .

Designation of a neotype. The lack of a type specimen for Stegonotus parvus is a significant hindrance to unraveling the taxonomy of the populations of Stegonotus in New Guinea and parts of Australia, where this name has been applied to dozens of specimens. Article 75 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN 1999) permits the designation of a neotype when specific qualifying conditions are met, and in this section we present the relevant declarations.

To satisfy the conditions of Article 75.3.1, we attest that with the available information, it is not possible to ascertain the taxonomic status of S. parvus . As a consequence, the application of this name since the destruction of the syntypes has been prone to error and has introduced a significant amount of uncertainty over the identity of groundsnakes throughout New Guinea and parts of Australia. Designation of a neotype is imperative to stabilize the taxonomic status of the species and the taxonomy of the genus as a whole.

To satisfy the conditions of Article 75.3.2, we refer the reader to the description in Meyer (1874). In addition to the key characteristics we list above, the original description provided the following head scale characteristics: rostral barely reaching the upper surface of the head; internasals trapezoid in shape, narrower anteriorly; prefrontals very wide, irregularly hexagonal; frontal nearly triangular, but pentagonal upon closer examination; loreal longer than wide; two pre- and two postoculars; 2+2+2 temporals; body scales lack pits; single cloacal plate.

To satisfy the conditions of Article 75.3.4, we hereby declare that we have unsuccessfully attempted to locate the syntypes of S. parvus by requesting information regarding their status from the curatorial staff at the Museum für Tierkunde, Dresden, Germany. Whereas the pre-war list of type material by Schüz (1929) included the two syntypes (MTKD 876), neither of the post-war type lists compiled by Obst (1977) and Fritz (2002) referenced them. It is understood that the syntypes were destroyed in the Allied bombing raids on Dresden in 1945.

The proposed neotype (RMNH.RENA 46844; Fig. 16 , Table 1) is a female that was collected by D.L. Leiker 16 on 22 February 1952 at Serui, Yapen Island, Papua Province, Indonesia (ca. 1.8807°S, 136.2386°E). This location is about 50 km distant (by air) from the original type locality and in the same type of lowland habitat on the southern coast of Yapen, thus satisfying Article 75.3.6.

The neotype has the following characteristics (where these differ in wording or qualitatively from those of the syntype used in the description, the values for the syntype are listed in parentheses): rostral barely reaching the upper surface of the head; internasals trapezoid in shape, narrower anteriorly; prefrontals very wide, irregularly hexagonal; frontal nearly triangular, but pentagonal upon closer examination; loreal 1.3 times longer than wide (longer than wide); one preocular (two preoculars); two postoculars, but on both sides of the head the lower postocular is fused with the 4 th supralabial (two postoculars); seven supralabials, the 3 rd and 4 th touching the eye; eight infralabials (no value given); 2+3+2 (2+2+2) temporals; 17-17-15 (only a middorsal count of 17 was given) dorsal scale rows, body scales lacking pits; single cloacal plate; V ♀ = 173 (V ♂ = 177), SC ♀ = 87 (SC ♂ = 100). We believe that the difference in the subcaudal count is a reflection of the sex of the specimen. Whereas the neotype is a female with an SCR ♀ of 0.33, the syntype for which scale counts were listed in the original description is most likely a male at an SCR ♂ of 0.36. Males of several Stegonotus species ( S. florensis , S. keyensis , S. modestus , S. sutteri ) have longer tails relative to body length than females, and this can explain the discrepancy seen in the SC values between the neotype and the syntype whose characters are known. Additional characteristics for the neotype include 217 mm SVL + 75 mm TL = 292 mm TTL, IL 1–4 touching the anterior genial, the body pigmentation not extending onto the ventral scales, and darkly pigmented subcaudal scales. These values satisfy the conditions of Article 75.3.5. We believe that the last two paragraphs along with the images shown in Fig. 16 satisfy the conditions of Article 75.3.3.

The neotype was accessioned into the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, The Netherlands (RMNH), on 17 February 1953. The RMNH maintains a public research collection with proper facilities for preserving namebearing types, and these are accessible for study. This statement satisfies Article 75.3.7.

16. Dick L. Leiker (1919–1995) was a physician specializing in leprosy treatment and research employed by the Dutch government. He was stationed in New Guinea from 1949–1958 ( Leiker & Sloan 1954; Faber et al. 1995).

Figures

FIGURE 16. Proposed neotype of Stegonotus parvus (Meyer, 1874), RMNH.RENA 46844, a female from Yapen Island, Papua Province, West New Guinea. Shown are the entire specimen (TTL = 292 mm) in (A) dorsal view, and its head in (B) dorsal, (C) right lateral, and (D) ventral views.