Stegonotus sutteri Forcart, 1953 :379

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 : 51

Stegonotus sutteri Forcart, 1953:379

Taxonomic status. This species has been considered a synonym of S. florensis since 1954, the year after its description. Based on the understanding of species boundaries in Stegonotus we have gained during our examination of hundreds of specimens, we use the following characteristics to distinguish S. sutteri from S. florensis (characters in parentheses): (1) SC ♀ = 76 (66), a difference greater than the within-species counts for SC that could be predicted using standard deviation values for confirmed species of Stegonotus ; (2) internasal suture four-fifths of internasal length (two-thirds), indicating that the rostral invades the dorsal surface of the head to a much lesser degree; (3) chin area separated from true ventral scales (gastrosteges) by three or four scales along the ventral midline (five scales); (4) smaller maximum SVL of 662 mm in males (850 mm); (5) mottled brown color pattern on the body (no discernable pattern); and (6) head without color pattern (irregular and diffuse brown and cream reticulations present in the head and neck region). These, combined with a distance of ca. 300 km (by air) across the Savu Sea between Sumba and the section on Flores where S. florensis is found, and the distinction between many elements in the herpetofauna of the Outer Banda Arc, where the volcanic relict Sumba is located on a crustal fragment ( Abdullah et al. 2000; Rutherford et al. 2001), and the Inner Banda Arc, where the a chain of volcanoes merged emergent landmasses to create Flores ( Muraoka et al. 2002), we hereby remove S. sutteri from the synonymy of S. florensis .

Synonyms. None.

Original name. Stegonotus sutteri Forcart, 1953:379 . Lothar Forcart (1902–1990; Fig. 17L ) was a Swiss malacologist and herpetologist, with a long career as Curator at the Natural History Museum in Basel, Switzerland from 1938–1967 ( Wüthrich 1990), where he succeeded Jean Roux (1876–1939). The species epithet honors the Swiss ornithologist Ernst Sutter (1914–1999), a participant in the 1949 expedition to Sumba by the Museum for Anthropology and the Natural History Museum in Basel. The species description was provided in German and included three photographs (of the entire specimen, the tail, and the everted hemipenes) and two line drawings (of the head in left lateral and dorsal views). The photograph of Forcart ( Fig. 17L ) is from Wüthrich (1990).

Holotype. NMBA 14872 ( Fig. 29 ; Table 1), an adult male.

Type locality. “Zentralsumba, Lindiwatju 430 m ” [central Sumba Island, East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia]. The specific locality “Lindiwatju” is indicated in a map of the major travel routes and sampling locations in the travelogue of the Basel museum’s Sumba expedition ( Bühler & Sutter 1951: Fig. 2). However, as this village is not found on contemporary maps of Sumba Island, it requires some additional explanation. In Kapunduku, the local dialect of central Sumba, the term “palindi” is used to describe a hill or a house on a slope ( Adams 1973, 1974). The term wacu (also spelled watju) means stone. The terms combined, as Palindi Wacu (or Lendiwacu on Google Maps), indicates a rocky outcropping. The location that fits the description and the map in Bühler & Sutter (1951) is at ca. 9.6556°S, 119.78°E.

Collection. According to Forcart’s (1953) description, the specimen was obtained on 30 September 1949.

Key characteristics of the holotype. 535 (567) mm SVL + 150 (144) mm TL = 685 (711) mm TTL. V ♂ = 231 (230), SC ♂ = 82 (83), SCR ♂ = 0.26 (0.27), D = O-21-O (21-21-19), SL E = 3+4+5 (3+4+5), SL = 9 (9), IL = 11 (10), IL G = 5 (5). Subcaudal scales are unpaired.

Key characteristics of the species. We have been able to examine only three specimens of S. sutteri , two males (the holotype and WAM 101957) and one female (WAM 101680), and our species-level synopsis is therefore tentative. Based on these specimens the following characteristics apply: V ♀ = 210, V ♂ = 210–230; SC ♀ = 76, SC ♂ = 83; SCR ♀ = 0.27, SCR ♂ = 0.27; D = 21-21-19; SL E = 3+4+5; SL = 9; IL = 9 or 10; IL G = 4 or 5. There does not appear to be a difference in V between males and females, whereas the difference in SC might indicate sexual dimorphism. Of course, given the small sample size, this statement is speculative.

Comment. Forcart (1953) considered his new species to be most closely related to Stegonotus plumbeus ( Macleay, 1884) . Only a year after its description, in a somewhat curious turn of events, he then placed it into the synonymy of S. florensis ( Forcart 1954) . It appears from Forcart’s (1954) explanatory text that he was prompted by the well-known and senior herpetologist Robert Mertens (1894–1975), curator at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, to rethink his description and to revise his assessment of the species.

Figures

FIGURE 17. Selected 19 th and 20 th Century authors and collectors of Stegonotus species. (A) Giacomo Doria (1840–1913), author of the species names aruensis and keyensis. (B) Odoardo Beccari (1843–1920), collector of the Stegonotus aruensis and S. keyensis type specimens. (C) William Macleay (1820–1891), author of the genus name Herbertophis and the species names darnleyensis and plumbeus. (D) John Archibald Boyd (1846–1926), collector of the Herbertophis plumbeus holotype. (E) George Albert Boulenger (1858–1937), author of the species names guentheri, heterurus, and reticulatus. Image licensed for use, © National Portrait Galley, London, United Kingdom. (F) The Reverend George Brown (1835–1917), collector of the Stegonotus heterurus syntypes from Duke of York Island. (G) Albert Stewart Meek (1871–1943), collector of the Stegonotus guentheri and S. reticulatus syntypes. (H) Wilhelm Adolfovich Lindholm (1874–1935), author of the species name diehli. (I) Nelly de Rooij (1883–1964), author of the species name florensis. (J) Franz Werner (1867–1939), author of the species names dorsalis and poechi. (K) Rudolf Pöch (1870–1921), collector of the Stegonotus dorsalis and S. poechi holotypes, and in whose honor the latter was named. (L) Lothar Forcart (1902–1990), author of the species name sutteri.

FIGURE 29. Holotype of Stegonotus sutteri Forcart, 1953, NMBA 14872, an adult male from Sumba Island, East Nusa Tenggara Province, Indonesia. Shown are the entire specimen (TTL = 711 mm) in (A) dorsal and (B) ventral views, and its head in (C) dorsal, (D) right lateral, and (E) ventral views.