Spilotes samarensis Peters, 1861 :685

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 : 22

Spilotes samarensis Peters, 1861:685

Taxonomic status. Junior synonym of S. muelleri .

Synonyms. None.

Original name. Spilotes Samarensis Peters, 1861:685 . Wilhelm Peters (1815–1883; Fig. 3I ) was an influential German zoologist who, for a time, worked as an assistant to Johannes Müller (for whom S. muelleri was named; see above) in the anatomical institute of the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin. At the time he wrote this species description, Peters had succeeded Martin Hinrich Lichtenstein (1780–1857) as director of the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. The species was named for the island on which it was collected. The species description was presented in German. The undated portrait of Peters ( Fig. 3I ; public domain) is from the archives of the ZMB.

Holotype. ZMB 4294 ( Fig. 11 ; Table 1), an adult male (according to the original description). The specimen consists of only the skin with the complete head, and it was originally described in this state. Some data (including sex and length measurements) must therefore have been obtained from the specimen by someone other than Peters before it was skinned.

Type locality. “Cubo-Cubo, Insel Samar” [Cobocóbo, northern Samar Island, The Philippines].

Collection. The specimen was collected by Fedor Jagor (1816–1900; Fig. 3J ), a German ethnologist and collector, who for several decades supplied specimens from various parts of Southeast Asia to European museums. Jagor arrived in the town of Laoang on Samar Island by boat on 5 July 1859 and proceeded shortly thereafter (the exact timing is not discernable from Jagor’s own travelogue) into the island’s interior from Catarmán, a settlement on the northern coast of Samar at the mouth of the Catarmán River ( Jagor 1873, 1875). This journey then continued up the Catarmán River, along which the settlement of Cobocóbo was reached by rowing continuously for 24 h. Based on the circumstantial evidence provided in Jagor’s account, it is most likely that the specimen was collected during the first half of July 1859. Jagor’s portrait ( Fig. 3J ; public domain) was drawn in 1886 by the German painter Christian Wilhelm Allers (1857–1915) and published by Olinda (1900).

Key characteristics of the holotype. 1680 (O) mm SVL + 390 (O) mm TL = 2070 (O) mm TTL. V ♂ = 232 (236), SC ♂ = 81 (78), SCR ♂ = 0.26 (0.25), D = O-17-O (17-17-15), SL E = 4+5 (4+5), SL = 9 (9R 8L; on the left side, there is an irregular fusion of two SLs), IL = O (10), IL G = O (4).

Key characteristics of the species. See the account of S. muelleri above.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Selected 19 th Century authors and collectors of Stegonotus species. (A) Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884), author of the species name modestus. (B) André Marie Constant Duméril (1774–1860), co-author with (C) and (D) of the genus name Stegonotus and the species names cucullatus, lividus, and muelleri. (C) Gabriel Bibron (1806–1848). (D) Auguste Henri André Duméril (1812–1870). (E) René-Primevère Lesson (1794–1849), co-collector (with Prosper Garnot; no image available) of the L. cucullatum holotype. (F) Pieter van Oort (1804–1834), co-collector (with Salomon Müller and Heinrich Macklot; no images available) of the L. lividum syntypes. (G) Pieter Bleeker (1819–1878), author of the species names greineri (and perhaps collector of its holotype) and rosenbergii. (H) Hermann von Rosenberg (1817–1888), collector of the Coronella rosenbergii holotype and the person for whom the species was named. (I) Wilhelm Karl Hartwig Peters (1815–1883), author of the species name samarensis. (J) Fedor Jagor (1816–1900), collector of the Spilotes samarensis holotype. (K) Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther (1830–1914), author of the genus name Zamenophis as well as the species names holochrous, batjanensis, and australis. The species Stegonotus guentheri was named in Günther’s honor. (L) Adolf Bernhard Meyer (1840–1911), author of the species names magnus and parvus and collector of the type material.

FIGURE 11. Holotype of Spilotes samarensis Peters, 1861, ZMB 4294, reported to be an adult male with TTL = 2070 mm in the original description, from Samar Island, The Philippines. The specimen is a rolled up skin with only parts of the tail still retaining a small amount of bone and tissue. Shown are views of the head in (A) dorsal, (B) right lateral, and (C) ventral views.