Tetradactylus fitzsimonsi Hewitt, 1915

Conradie, Werner, Branch, William R. & Watson, Gillian, 2019, Type specimens in the Port Elizabeth Museum, South Africa, including the historically important Albany Museum collection. Part 2: Reptiles (Squamata), Zootaxa 4576 (1), pp. 1-45 : 22

Tetradactylus fitzsimonsi Hewitt, 1915

Annals of the Transvaal Museum, 5(2):101.

Syntype: PEM R4439 ; Schoemachers Kop [=Schoenmakerkop] near Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa; collector and date unknown .

Remarks: Although FitzSimons (1943) lists the cotypes as being in Port Elizabeth and Albany Museum, this must have been in error as the type description clearly states two specimens loaned to Hewitt from the Port Elizabeth Museum’s director F.W. FitzSimons. However, only the larger specimen (Schoenmakerskop) is currently extant in the PEM. Both Hewitt (1915, 1937b) and subsequent authors questioned the second smaller specimen from Kroonstad and subsequently disregarded it ( FitzSimons 1943; Loveridge 1942; Branch 1990) and considered the taxon to be restricted to the Port Elizabeth region.The original label gives no details for collector or the date of collection. Based on consistent morphological differences, Bates (2014) treats this as a full species.