Psammophis tanganicus Loveridge, 1940:57

Bauer, Aaron M., DeBoer, Jonathan C. & Taylor, Dylan J., 2017, Atlas of the Reptiles of Libya, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 64 (8), pp. 155-318 : 256-257

Psammophis tanganicus Loveridge, 1940:57 .

1940 Psammophis biseriatus tanganicus Loveridge, Revision of the African snakes of the genera Dromophis and Psammophis . Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, 87: 1–69.

HOLOTYPE.— MCZ R30380 “Mangasini, Usandawi, central Tanganyika Territory.” [= Mangasini , Northwest Singida Region, Tanzania].

Psammophis biseriatus tanganicus, Kramer and Schnurrenberger 1963:515 .

Psammophis tanganicus, Sindaco, Venchi, and Grieco 2013:170 .

DISTRIBUTION.— This species is distributed from the Horn of Africa south to Tanzania. Fezzan records in Libya are widely disjunct. Its occurrence in Libya was treated as questionable by Sindaco et al. (2013) and it was not considered by Geniez (2015).

Libyan Records (Map 60): FEZZAN: WADI AL SHATII: 211: Scortecci 1937a. GHAT: 234: Scortecci 1937a. 249: SK 1619; Scortecci 1937a,b, 1939; Zavattari 1937; Loveridge 1940; Kramer and Schnurrenberger 1963.

COMMENTS.— Scortecci (1937) and Zavattari (1937) reported this species from the Fezzan area as Psammophis biseriatus . Loveridge (1940) acknowledged that his acceptance of the species’ occurrence in Libya rested on the authority of these earlier authors. Scortecci’s material was supposedly destroyed in World War II (Scortecci in

Kramer and Schnurrenberger 1963). Kramer and Schnurrenberger (1963) examined a male specimen from Ghat (collection Kramer), having 15 scales at midbody and 3 supralabials touching the eye, which is consistent with

P. tanganicus but not its Libyan or northeast

African congeners (see Chippaux 1999).

Although some recent authors cite this species for Libya ( Schleich et al. 1996) or for the Sahel of Chad ( Le Berre 1989), Spawls et al. (2002),

Venchi and Sindaco (2006) and Sindaco et al.

(2013) have called into question the occurrence of this species so far from its primary range.

UCN Threat Status: Not assessed.

MAP 60. Distribution of Psammophis tanganicus in Libya.