Ablabes greineri Bleeker, 1860a :43

Kaiser, Christine M., Kaiser, Hinrich & O’Shea, Mark, 2018, The taxonomic history of Indo-Papuan groundsnakes, genus Stegonotus Duméril et al., 1854 (Colubridae), with some taxonomic revisions and the designation of a neotype for S. parvus (Meyer, 1874), Zootaxa 4512 (1), pp. 1-73 : 19-20

Ablabes greineri Bleeker, 1860a:43

Taxonomic status. Junior synonym of S. modestus .

Synonyms. None.

Original name. Ablabes Greineri Bleeker 1860a:43 . Pieter Bleeker (1819–1878; Fig. 3G ) was a medical officer in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) with a keen interest in natural history. He became particularly well known for his ichthyological collections and authored over 500 publications ( Bleeker 1877). He named this species in honor of the physician C.G.C.F. Greiner, Health Officer 2 nd Class ( Bleeker 1860a), who served alongside Bleeker as a physician in the Dutch military. The species description was presented in Dutch. The undated photograph of Bleeker ( Fig. 3G ; licensed under CC-BY-3.0) is from the Holthuis Collection, RMNH.

Holotype. BMNH 1946.1 .13.74, formerly BMNH 63.12 .4.21 9 ( Fig. 9 ; Table 1), an adult male.

Type locality. “Amboina” [ Ambon Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia].

Collection. His position with the Royal Netherlands East Indies army demanded that Bleeker’s main area of activity remained near Batavia (now Jakarta), the nexus of the Dutch power structure in what is now Indonesia ( Heiningen 2010). However, his influential position allowed him to establish an excellent supplier network to obtain natural history specimens from throughout the Dutch realm in Southeast Asia. In late 1855, Bleeker accompanied the then-Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, Albertus Duymaer van Twist (1809–1887) on a tour of northern Sulawesi and the central Moluccas, and this is the only time during his tenure in the region, outside of his regular posting on Java, when he could have personally collected specimens. The Governor-General’s posse stayed on Ambon for a week in early October 1855 ( Bleeker 1856). Based on this information, the specimen was most likely collected between 2–9 October 1855.

9. Original BMNH accession numbers were composed of four numbers (e.g., 00.00.00.00) the first three of which indicated the year, month, and day of accession. Thus, the original number of the Ablabes greineri holotype (BMNH 63.12.4.21) indicates that the specimen was accessioned on 4 December 1863. In the 20 th Century, four-digit prefixes were used for the year (e.g., 1912.00.00.00). During the Second World War, the BMNH relocated type specimens preserved in alcohol to prevent their loss from air attacks. When specimens were returned to the collection after the war, they were re-accessioned into the collection with new accession numbers, such as in the case of snake specimens with a 1946 prefix ( Long 1981).

Key characteristics of the holotype. O (552) mm SVL + O (162) mm TL = O (714) mm TTL. V ♂ = O (206), SC ♂ = O (87), SCR ♂ = O (0.30), D = O (17-17-15), SL E = 3+4 (3+4), SL = 7 (7), IL = O (8), IL G = O (4). Bleeker (1860) commented that the body length was 4.5 times the length of the tail, which would indicate a ratio of SVL to TTL of 0.22. Using our length measurements to calculate this ratio, the result is essentially identical (0.23).

Key characteristics of the species. See the account of S. modestus above.

Comments. We believe that circumstantial evidence indeed points to Bleeker personally collecting this specimen during the 1855 sojourn, as opposed to receiving it subsequently through his supplier network. In an earlier publication ( Bleeker 1856:63) listed among the 20 snakes species he identified for Ambon “ Lycodon modestum Schl. ” It appears that during his initial sorting of specimens, Bleeker considered this form conspecific with S. modestus but later changed his mind and erected a new species for the specimen from his own collection. Thus, the specimen was already in Bleeker’s possession in time for the 1856 publication, but the description under a new name occurred only four years later.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Selected 19 th Century authors and collectors of Stegonotus species. (A) Hermann Schlegel (1804–1884), author of the species name modestus. (B) André Marie Constant Duméril (1774–1860), co-author with (C) and (D) of the genus name Stegonotus and the species names cucullatus, lividus, and muelleri. (C) Gabriel Bibron (1806–1848). (D) Auguste Henri André Duméril (1812–1870). (E) René-Primevère Lesson (1794–1849), co-collector (with Prosper Garnot; no image available) of the L. cucullatum holotype. (F) Pieter van Oort (1804–1834), co-collector (with Salomon Müller and Heinrich Macklot; no images available) of the L. lividum syntypes. (G) Pieter Bleeker (1819–1878), author of the species names greineri (and perhaps collector of its holotype) and rosenbergii. (H) Hermann von Rosenberg (1817–1888), collector of the Coronella rosenbergii holotype and the person for whom the species was named. (I) Wilhelm Karl Hartwig Peters (1815–1883), author of the species name samarensis. (J) Fedor Jagor (1816–1900), collector of the Spilotes samarensis holotype. (K) Albert Karl Ludwig Gotthilf Günther (1830–1914), author of the genus name Zamenophis as well as the species names holochrous, batjanensis, and australis. The species Stegonotus guentheri was named in Günther’s honor. (L) Adolf Bernhard Meyer (1840–1911), author of the species names magnus and parvus and collector of the type material.

FIGURE 9. Holotype of Ablabes greineri Bleeker, 1860a, BMNH 1946.1.13.74, an adult male (TTL = 714 mm) from Ambon Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia. Shown are two views of the entire specimen (A,B), and of its head in (C) dorsal, (D) right lateral, and (E) ventral views.