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 : 903

publication ID

https://doi.org/ 10.5281/zenodo.5360449

publication LSID

lsid:zoobank.org:pub:591555C6-EF37-495B-A

persistent identifier

https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03D39A7A-FFCE-9F38-FEBD-A3F1142D6D35

treatment provided by

Marcus

scientific name

Contia persica
status

 

CONTIA PERSICA SMITH, 1943

Holotype

Originally deposited in the collection of the Zoological Survey of India ( ZSI), Calcutta, India, but Smith (1943) stated that it has been lost.

Terra typica

Cherat, Baluchistan [Cherat (33°49′15″N, 71°52′54″E), North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan (locality indicated by star 3 in Fig. 2 View Figure 2 )] GoogleMaps .

Diagnosis

N = 8; 5♂, 3♀. 184–208 (x = 195.8) ventrals in ♂ and 194–209 (x = 201.3) in ♀; 77–85 (x = 81.0) subcaudals in ♂ and 77 in ♀ (only counted in one specimen because in the rest the tail was damaged); ratio of the tail length over total length 23.90–25.94 (x = 24.81) in ♂ and 24.1 in ♀; 15/15 dorsal scale rows on the anteri- or and mid dorsal body, usually 15 (62.5%), sometimes 13, posterior dorsal scales; usually seven (80%), rarely seven/eight, supralabials; usually eight (80%), rarely seven/nine, infralabials on both sides of the head; posterior chin shields attached; predominantly (62.5%) no loreal scale, sometimes a single loreal scale may exist; eight (33.3%) or ten (66.7%) scales between the last infralabials, nine to 11 scales behind the parietals.

Dorsal background colour light brown, buff, or brownish; in some specimens body without dorsal pattern, but the bases of the anterior dorsal scales are darker than the rest of scales; in the others there are a few dark spots on the anterior dorsum or there are dark dorsal cross bars interrupted on the dorsal midline, becoming wider and tending to fade out toward the posterior dorsal body; a transverse dark marking between the eyes, another one on the third/fourth anterior parietals, and a dark band (about four scales wide) on the nape, usually separated from each other, or con- nected medially; the snout, lateral head, and labials may be uniformly cream or with pale dark blotches on the snout, the upper temporal, below the eye, and adjacent to the supralabials; the nape band’s width shrinks over the lateral neck and are detached over the ventral or preventral scales; the lower side of the head and the body uniformly cream ( Fig. 1D View Figure 1 ).

Distribution

Distributed across north-eastern Pakistan, the lower ranges of Hindu kush, and the Himalayan range. This species may possibly extend into eastern Afghanistan (localities indicated by stars 1 to 9 in Fig. 2 View Figure 2 ).

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Reptilia

Order

Squamata

Family

Dipsadidae

Genus

Contia

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