Namibiana aff. rostrata (Bocage, 1886)

Baptista, Ninda L., António, Telmo & Branch, William R., 2019, The herpetofauna of Bicuar National Park and surroundings, southwestern Angola: a preliminary checklist, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 203) 13 (2), pp. 96-130 : 119

Namibiana aff. rostrata (Bocage, 1886)

Angolan Beaked Thread Snake ( Fig. 34 )

Material: NB599 (HF).

Comment: Thread snakes are a difficult group to study due to their very small size and conservative morphology ( Broadley and Broadley 1999; Branch 2018). Namibiana rostrata is endemic to Angola, and originally described from Humbe, ca. 110 km south of BNP. It has recently been recorded from BNP ( Butler et al. 2019), and we provisionally assign the specimen from Handa Farm to the same species. Haacke (TM) collected two thread snakes, one from Paiva Couceiro (= Quipungo, TM45190), around 30 km southeast of Handa Farm, and another from Hoque (TM 46699), ca. 77 km northwest of BNP, both identified as Leptotyohlops scutifrons scutifrons . All these records should be carefully compared to confirm species identification.

Figures

Fig. 34. Namibiana aff. rostrata, Handa Farm.