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Acontias namaquensis HEWITT, 1937

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Higher TaxaScincidae, Acontiinae (Acontidae), Scincoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Namaqua Legless Skink, Namaqua Lance Skink 
SynonymAcontias plumbeus namaquensis HEWITT 1937: 47
Acontias plumbeus namaquensis — FITZSIMONS 1943: 247
Acontias gracilicauda namaquensis — BROADLEY & GREER 1969: 19
Acontias namaquensis — LAMB et al. 2010
Acontias namaquensis — CONRADIE et al. 2019
Acontias namaquensis — ZHAO et al. 2023 
DistributionRepublic of South Africa (Northern Cape Province)

Type locality: O'okiep, Steinkopf & Kamiesberg, Little Namaqualand (fide FITZSIMONS 1943: 247)  
Reproductionovovivparous 
TypesHolotype: PEM R4443 (formerly AMG 959), (FITZSIMONS 1943: 248, Broadley & Greer, 1969) 
Diagnosis 
CommentLimb morphology: Limbless.

Type not in South Africa fide SAMA catalog (Anonymous 1958) which lists the type of Scelotes bipes namaquensis FITZSIMONS. 
EtymologyNamed after the type locality. 
References
  • Bates, M.F.; Branch, W.R., Bauer, A.M.; Burger, M., Marais, J.; Alexander, G.J. & de Villliers, M.S. (eds.) 2014. Atlas and Red List of the Reptiles of South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland. Suricata 1. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria, 512 pp.
  • Bauer, A.M., and Branch, W.R. 2003. The herpetofauna of the Richtersveld National Park, Northern Cape Province, Republic of South Africa. Herpetological Natural History 8: 111-160 [2001]
  • BRANCH , W.R. & MARITZ, B. 2010. Acontias namaquensis (Hewitt, 1938). African Herp News (51): 28-29 - get paper here
  • Broadley, D. G. and Greer, A. E. 1969. A revision of the genus Acontias Cuvier (Sauria: Scincidae). Arnoldia Rhodesia 4 (26): 1-29.
  • CONRADIE, WERNER; WILLIAM R. BRANCH, & GILLIAN WATSON 2019. Type specimens in the Port Elizabeth Museum, South Africa, including the historically important Albany Museum collection. Part 2: Reptiles (Squamata). Zootaxa 4576 (1): 001–045 - get paper here
  • Daniels, S. R., M. G. J. Hendricks, N. J. L. Heideman and B. A. Wilson. 1999. Geographic Distribution. Acontias gracilicauda gracilicauda Essex 1925: Thin-tailed legless skink. African Herp News (29): 43 - get paper here
  • Daniels, S.R.; Neil J.L. Heideman, Martin G.J. Hendricks, Mphalile E. Mokone, Keith A. Crandall 2005. Unraveling evolutionary lineages in the limbless fossorial skink genus Acontias (Sauria: Scincidae): are subspecies equivalent systematic units? Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 34: 645–654 - get paper here
  • Essex, R. 1925. Descriptions of two new species of the genus Acontias and notes on some other lizards found in the Cape Province. Rec. Albany Mus. 3: 332-342.
  • Heideman, N.J.L. et al. 2008. Sexual dimorphism in the African legless skink subfamily Acontiinae (Reptilia: Scincidae). African Zoology 43 (2): 192–201 - get paper here
  • Hewitt, J. 1937. Description of new forms of the genus Acontias. Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Africa 26: 39-48
  • Lamb, T.; Biswas, S. & Bauer, A.M. 2010. A phylogenetic reassessment of African fossorial skinks in the subfamily Acontinae (Squamata: Scincidae): evidence for parallelism and polyphyly. Zootaxa 2657: 33–46 - get paper here
  • Zhao, Z., Conradie, W., Pietersen, D.W., Jordaan, A., Nicolau, G., Edwards, S., Riekert, S., Heideman, N. 2023. Diversification of the African legless skinks in the subfamily Acontinae (Family Scincidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution - get paper here
 
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