Agama schacki Mertens, 1938

Conradie, Werner, Keates, Chad, Verburgt, Luke, Baptista, Ninda L., Harvey, James, Júlio, Timóteo & Neef, Götz, 2022, Contributions to the herpetofauna of the Angolan Okavango-Cuando-Zambezi River drainages. Part 2: Lizards (Sauria), chelonians, and crocodiles, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 322) 16 (2), pp. 181-214 : 188

Agama schacki Mertens, 1938

Schack’s Rock Agama ( Fig. 5 , Map 4)

Material (16 specimens): PEM R 23367, en route to Cuito, east of Huambo, -12.73615° 15.97442°, 1,777 m asl; PEM R 23381–7, INBAC: WC-5208–9, campsite near old Cuvango Mission on Cubango River, -13.32887° 16.41167°, 1,520 m asl; PEM R 23395– 400, INBAC: WC-5162, Cubango River near source, -12.66256° 16.09324°, 1,764 m asl. Description: Large, rupicolous agama. Male with orange head and tail; 84– 101 (92) scale rows at midbody; 80–94 (88) transverse ventral scale rows; 71–80 (74) transverse dorsal scale rows; 9–11 supralabials; 9–12 infralabials; 21–24 (22) subdigital lamellae under 4 th toe; 11–13 precloacal pores in a single row. Largest female: 102.3 + 142.0 mm ( PEM R 23383); largest male: 118.0 + 95t mm ( PEM R 23387 had the longest intact tail which measured 173 mm [1.5 x SVL]). Habitat and natural history notes: Individuals were associated with large rocky outcrops, especially along the upper Cubango River. Comment: Based on the higher midbody scale counts, we can confidently assign our material to the A. schacki group ( Mertens 1938). Ignoring the erroneous records of Monard (1937) from Cuando Cubango Province, our material represents the most easterly records for this species. The status of the Angolan Rock Agamas was briefly discussed by Ceríaco et al. (2014). Preliminary phylogenetic results indicate that A. schacki should be treated as a full species, and that more cryptic species are present in the larger Angolan Rock Agama group ( Marques et al. 2018; Butler 2020). We follow these studies and treat A. schacki as a distinct species from A. planiceps , restricting the latter to the arid regions of the Namibe Province, and we treat all other records as A. aff. schacki until the taxonomic status of the cryptic species are addressed. Butler (2020) lacked genetic material from central Angola, and our material may potentially represent either of the two inland clades identified in that study. Since efforts to separate the species in the Agama planiceps complex are still ongoing, we produced a map for the entire species complex ( Map 4).

Figures

Fig. 5. Adult male Agama schacki (PEM R23367) from near source of the Cubango River. Photo by Werner Conradie.