Contia persica, Boulenger, 1893

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 : 900

CONTIA PERSICA PERSICA TERENT ÉV & CHERNOV, 1965

Holotype

ZSI 4828 (collection of the Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta, India) ( Sclater, 1891; Das, Dattagupta & Gayen, 1998).

Terra typica

‘ Bushire, Persia’ [Bushehr city (28°55′13″N, 50°50′09″E), Bushehr province, south-western Iran, the locality indicated by circle 29 in Fig. 2 ] .

Description

N = 9; 5♂, 4♀. 190–203 (x = 195.6) ventrals in ♂ and 198–214 (x = 205.0) in ♀; 64–83 subcaudals (x = 75.0) in ♂, 54–77 (x = 66.25) in ♀; ratio of the tail length over total length 21.93–29.09 (x = 23.80) in ♂, 18.92– 22.60 (x = 20.42) in ♀. 15/15/15 dorsal scale rows on the anterior, mid, and posterior portion of the body; usually seven (88.9%), rarely eight, supralabials and usually eight (88.9%), rarely seven, infralabials on both sides of the head; posterior chin shields attached or separated by a single scale; no loreal scale; usually ten (66.7%), rarely eight or nine, scales between the last infralabials and nine to 12 scales behind the parietals.

Dorsal background colour yellowish, light brown or pale olive, without dorsal pattern; usually three dark transverse markings on the head and the nape, one on the posterior snout, another one on the third/ fourth anterior parietals, and the last one on the nape, separated from each other by a narrow light band; alternatively the dorsal head (except at the tip of the snout) and the nape are completely blackish; lateral and ventral head may be uniform cream or with dark markings on snout, upper temporal, below or around eye, and adjacent to the supralabials and anterior to the infralabials; lower side of body unicolour cream; the nape’s band is five to eight scales wide dorsally, shrinks over lateral neck, interrupted over the ventral or preventral scales or rarely (only in one specimen) connected ventrally ( Fig. 1A ).

Distribution

Occurs in the southern Zagros and in adjacent areas to the western Zagros foothills and the central plain of Iran, from the south the species range extends to the Persian Gulf coastline. The species has also been reported from Fars, Isfahan, Khuzestan, and Bushehr provinces (localities indicated by circles 21 to 31 in Fig. 2 ) .

Figures

Figure 1. Different morphs of the Eirenis persicus species group: A, persicus morph from Dasht-e Arjan, Fars province, south-western Iran (photo by F. Hidary); B, walteri morph from Dehbakri, Kerman province, south-eastern Iran (photo by R. Nazarov); C, new morph from Sisakht, Yasuj province, central Zagros mountains, Iran (photo by H. Esmaeili); D, persicus morph from Kafir Kot, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan (photo by R. Masroor); E, nigrofasciatus morph from Dezful, Khuzestan province, south-western Iran (photo by F. Hidary).

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.