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Acontias gracilicauda ESSEX, 1925

IUCN Red List - Acontias gracilicauda - Least Concern, LC
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Higher TaxaScincidae, Acontiinae (Acontidae), Scincoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Thin-tailed Legless Skink, Slendertail Lance Skink 
SynonymAcontias gracilicauda ESSEX 1925: 334
Acontias gracilicauda — ESSEX 1928: 268
Acontias plumbeus gracilicauda — HEWITT 1937: 46
Acontias plumbeus gracilicauda — FITZSIMONS 1943: 248
Acontias plumbeus gracilicauda — WITTE & LAURENT 1943: 20
Acontias gracilicauda gracilicauda —BROADLEY & GREER 1969: 18
Acontias gracilicauda — DANIELS et al. 2005
Acontias gracilicauda — LAMB et al. 2010
Acontias gracilicauda — CONRADIE et al. 2019
Acontias gracilicauda — ZHAO et al. 2023 
DistributionRepublic of South Africa (Little Namaqualand, E Cape, OFS, S Transvaal)

Type locality: Grahamstown; also given as Carolina (fide Broadley & Greer, 1969).  
Reproductionovoviviparous 
TypesHolotype: PEM R5131 (AMG un-numbered); but given as AMG 3955 (= Albany Museum), fide FITZSIMONS 1943: 249. 
DiagnosisUnfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 41 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. 
CommentSubspecies: Acontias gracilicauda namaquensis HEWITT 1938 has been elevated to species status. Busschau et al. 2016 found interspecific sequence divergence values for Cyt b ranging from 3.1% between A. gracilicauda (Clade 1) and A. breviceps (Clade 2) ) to 7.4% between A. breviceps Clade 1 and Clade 2 and 6.1% between A. gracilicauda Clade 1 and Clade 2.

Limb morphology: Limbless. 
EtymologyNamed after Latin gracilis, slender, thin, slim, and Latin cauda = tail. 
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]
  • Bourquin, O. 1994. Geographical Distribution - Acontias gracilicauda gracilicauda. African Herp News (21): 25-25 - 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.
  • Busschau, Theo; Werner Conradie; Adriaan Jordaan, Savel R. Daniels 2016. Unmasking evolutionary diversity among two closely related South African legless skink species (Acontinae: Acontias) using molecular data. Zoology 121:72-82 [print 2017] - get paper here
  • Conradie, Werner; Brian Reeves , Neil Brown, & Jan A. Venter 2016. Herpetofauna of the Oviston, Commando Drift and Tsolwana nature reserves in the arid interior of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Indago 32: 81-98 - get paper here
  • 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., N. Heideman, M. Hendricks, and B. Willson. 2002. A molecular phylogeny for the South African limbless lizard taxa of the subfamily Acontinae (Sauria: Scincidae) with special emphasis on relationships within Acontias. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 24: 315-323 - 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.
  • Essex, R. 1929. A note on three burrowing reptiles. Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (10) 1: 268-270 - get paper here
  • 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
  • Reeves, B., Brooke, C. F., Venter, J. A., & Conradie, W. 2022. The Reptiles and Amphibians of the Mpofu-Fort Fordyce Nature Reserve Complex in the Winterberg Mountains, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. African Journal of Wildlife Research, 52(1) - get paper here
  • Tolley KA, Telford NS, Makhubo BG, Power RJ, Alexander GJ 2023. Filling the gap: Noteworthy herpetological discoveries in North West Province, South Africa. Zoosystematics and Evolution 99(1): 101-116 - get paper here
  • Tolley, K.A., Conradie, W., Pietersen, D.W., Weeber, J., Burger, M. & Alexander, G.J. (eds) 2023. Conservation status of the reptiles of South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho. Suricata 10. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria - get paper here
  • Witte, G.F. de & R. LAURENT 1943. Contribution à la systématique des formes dégradées de la famille des Scincidae apparentées au genre Scelotes Fitzinger. Mém. Mus. r. Hist. nat. Belg. (sér.2) 26: 44 pp. - 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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