Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827

Vogel, Gernot, David, Patrick, Lutz, Mario, Rooijen, Johan Van & Vidal, Nicolas, 2007, Revision of the Tropidolaemus wagleri-complex (Serpentes: Viperidae: Crotalinae). I. Definition of included taxa and redescription of Tropidolaemus wagleri (Boie, 1827), Zootaxa 1644 (1), pp. 1-40 : 7-9

Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827

Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 : col. 561. —Type locality. Not given. —Types. Two secondary syntypes, both unlocated,

can be inferred from the original text, see below.

Comments. F. Boie, who published the notes of his late brother H. Boie, did not provide any description, but based this taxon upon three sources:

(1) “H. Boie Erp. de Java ”. Here F. Boie (1827) referred to the unpublished manuscript of his brother H. Boie (Boie, n.d.). This manuscript does not constitute a publication in the meaning of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature ( ICZN, 1999). Nevertheless, at least two specimens were described in this manuscript (Boie, n.d.). They were described as: “a bright green postorbital streak, body and tail above with black and yellow, black-edged, parallel crossbars, below yellowish-green, sides dotted with green.” Although their locality was not indicated by Boie, by all evidence they belong to the western populations (defined above as OTU 1 to OTU 3). This pattern of yellow crossbars separated by dark green of black crossbars with light green or yellow dots is known only in adult females from Thailand, West Malaysia and Sumatra (and adjacent islands). As these specimens appeared in an invalid publication, we do not consider them syntypes.

(2) “ Col. sumatranus Raffles ”. For some reason, Boie confused his Cophias wagleri with Coluber sumatranus Raffles, 1822 , a totally different taxon, still valid and now known as Trimeresurus sumatranus or Parias sumatranus depending on authors’ classification of Asian pitvipers (see, for example Malhotra & Thorpe, 2004; Vogel, 2006). Such confusion between these two species occurred as late as Ouwens (1916: Figs. 22 & 22a), as explained in David (2007). Raffles (1822) based his description on a single specimen, which also becomes a secondary syntype of Tropidolaemus wagleri (see Dubois & Ohler, 1996).

(3) “Seba T. II tab. 68 fig. 4”. Boie here referred to a specimen depicted on a plate of Seba (1735: Pl. 68). Although the drawing is rather fair, the depicted snake is indeed either a juvenile or a male of Tropidolaemus wagleri sensu lato, and definitely not a Coluber sumatranus Raffles, 1822 . His banded pattern suggests a juvenile member of the genus Tropidolaemus , although it is unclear whether it belongs to the western populations of T. wagleri . This specimen is regarded as the second syntype of Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 .

As a consequence, we here designate the specimen depicted in Seba (1735: Fig. 68), the sole correctly identified valid syntype of Cophias wagleri , as the lectotype of Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 . This specimen being now untraced, we describe below a neotype of Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 .

Status. A valid taxon, as Tropidolaemus wagleri . Indeed, although Boie (1827) did not provide any description, the binomen Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 is valid on the basis of Art. 12.1 and 12.2 of the Code, which allow a description by “indication” for names published before 1931. Art. 12.2.1 states that a bibliographic reference to a previously published description or definition (...) constitutes such an indication. Boie’s (1827) description should hence considered valid. As pointed in McDiarmid et al. (1999), this is due only to the existence of the indication referring to Seba’s plate. This fact was overlooked by David & Vogel (1996) who erroneously credited the first valid description to Wagler (1830), also on the basis of an indication. Wagler gave a short description of the genus that included the single species Cophias wagleri H. Boie, 1827 . Of course, all these authors who credited the authorship of the taxon to Schlegel (1837) (for example Hoge & Romano Hoge, 1981; Golay et al., 1993) or to Boie in Schlegel (1837) ( Leviton, 1964), also overlooked the validity of Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 .

Description of Neotype. Schlegel (1837: 542) had at hand two adult and six juvenile specimens, all from Sumatra. Possibly the adults were those seen by Boie and described in his unpublished manuscript. Golay et al. (1993) stated that six (or seven) specimens deposited in the RMNH (Leyden) were syntypes of Trigonocephalus wagleri Schlegel, 1837 . This combination is merely a chresonym of Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 , so these specimens are by no means syntypes of Cophias wagleri . Furthermore, the two adults described in Boie’s manuscript cannot be regarded as syntypes, as the source in which they were cited does not constitute a publication in the sense of the Code. Lastly, the citation of specimens from Sumatra by Schlegel (1837) cannot be regarded as a type locality restriction, in contrast to the opinion of some authors (see, for example, Orlov et al., 2002).

The sole valid syntype is the specimen depicted on Seba’s plate. As the whereabouts of this specimen are unknown, in order to stabilize the specific nomen wagleri and in agreement with Dubois & Ohler (1996), we here design a neotype for Cophias wagleri Boie, 1827 . As, by all available evidence, (1) possibly Seba (1735) but definitely Boie (n.d.) had at hand specimens from the western populations, and (2) the subspecific nomen wagleri has ever been attached to western populations, for purpose of stability, we select and describe a neotype from the western populations, as follows:

Neotype ( Figs. 4–7 ): MNHN 1879.0708 (ex MNHN 5784 ), an adult female from “Deli: rivière de Bedagneh (Est de Sumatra)”, now Bedagai River (about 3°30’N, 99°13’E), Sumatera Barat Province, Sumatra, Indonesia. Collected by Mr. Rochet.

Body moderately stout, laterally compressed; head distinctly triangular, wide at its base, clearly distinct from the neck (at least twice as broad as the neck), thick when seen from the side, average, 1.2 times as long as wide and amounting for 6.5 % of SVL; snout obliquely truncated when seen from the side, with a distinct canthus rostralis, rounded seen from above, rather long, amounting for 25.6 % of HL or 2.3 times as long as diameter of eye; nostrils small, piercing in the middle of the nasal; eye small, amounting for 0.7 time of the distance eye–lip; tail average, tapering and strongly prehensile.

SVL: 591 mm; TaL: 112 mm; TL: 703 mm; HL: 38.7 mm; ratio TaL/TL: 0.159.

VEN: 137 (+ 2 preventrals); SC: 51, paired, plus one terminal scale; anal shield entire.

DSR: 27 – 25 – 21 scales, rhomboid, strongly keeled.

Rostral visible from above, about 1.2 times broader than high, triangular; nasals subrectangular, entire; no nasal pore; 1 internasal on each side, elongated, narrow, slightly bent, 2 times as long as wide; internasals in contact; 5 / 5 canthal scales, not larger than adjacent snout scales, bordering the canthus rostralis; 1 elongate triangular loreal scale between upper preocular and the nasal; 2 elongate upper preoculars above the loreal pit; lower preocular forming the lower margin of loreal pit; 2 / 2 small postoculars; 1 small, narrow, flat supraocular on each side, 2.7 times as long as wide on both sides, 0.5 time as wide as the interna- sals, irregularly bordered on their inner margins by the upper head scales; 7 slightly enlarged scales on upper snout surface on a line between the scales separating the internasals and a line connecting the anterior margins of eyes, strongly keeled, imbricate, rhomboid; 14 cephalic scales on a line between the supraoculars, small, strongly keeled, flat and imbricate; occipital scales not larger than cephalic scales, strongly keeled; temporal scales small, irregular in size, in 3 rows, all strongly keeled; 2 / 1 small, thin, elongated, suboculars; 10 / 10 SL; 1 st SL rather short, entirely separated from nasal; 2 nd SL short, not bordering the anterior margin of the loreal pit, topped by a prefoveal scale which borders the pit and is separated from the nasal by 4 / 4 minute scales; 3 rd SL longest and highest, 1.5 / 1.6 times as long as high, separated from the subocular by 1 / 1 small scale; 4 th SL 1.0 / 0.9 times as long as high, 0.7 time as high as 3 rd SL, separated from the subocular by 2 scales on each side; 5 th SL smaller than 4 th one, separated from subocular by 2 scale rows of similar size; 13 / 12 IL, showing some keeling; scales of the 1 st pair longitudinally in contact, first 3 or 4 pairs in contact with anterior chin shields; 8 / 8 rows of strongly keeled gular scales.

In preservative, this specimen shows the typical complex “speckled” coloration of females of the western population. Body deep black, with 26 irregular bright yellow crossbars, on the body 2 or 3 scale wide, separated by 5-7 scales; many scales of black areas with a yellow or yellowish green centre, this colour becoming broader and more green on the lower side of the sides; tail also deep black, irregularly marked with very irregular bright yellow blotches, the first ones forming incomplete crossbands, the others reduced to elongated blotches; tip of tail black.

The dorsal head surface is deep black with small irregular yellow blotches; a wide, bright yellow postocular streak, narrowly edged below with white, extending from eye to behind the corner of the mouth in widening posteriorly; lower half of rostral and supralabials ochre yellow, narrowly edged with black; area between the posterior supralabials and the postocular streak deep black, the lower half of this area speckled with pale yellowish green, the upper part more or less entirely black, producing a distinct black stripe bordering below the postocular streak.

Venter yellow, the posterior edge of ventrals black; chin and throat yellow, the infralabials narrowly edged with black; some greenish-yellow, black edged blotches on the chin near the posterior infralabials.

Figures

FIGURE 4. Neotype of Tropidolaemus wagleri (MNHN 5784). Lateral view of the head, right side. Photograph by Gernot Vogel.

FIGURE 5. Neotype of Tropidolaemus wagleri (MNHN 5784). Lateral view of the head, left side. Photograph by Gernot Vogel.

FIGURE 6. Neotype of Tropidolaemus wagleri (MNHN 5784). Dorsal view of the head. Photograph by Gernot Vogel.

FIGURE 7. Neotype of Tropidolaemus wagleri (MNHN 5784). General view. Photograph by Gernot Vogel.