Acontias percivali LOVERIDGE, 1935

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Higher Taxa	Scincidae, Acontinae; Sauria (lizards)
Subspecies	Acontias percivali tasmani HEWITT 1938 Acontias percivali percivali LOVERIDGE 1935
Common Names	Percival's Lance Skink, Teita Limbless skink
Synonym	Acontias percivali LOVERIDGE 1935: 13 Acontias percivali occidentalis — AUERBACH 1987: 104 Acontias percivali — WHITING et al. 2003 Acontias percivali percivali LOVERIDGE 1935 Acontias percivali LOVERIDGE 1935: 13 Acontias percivali percivali — BROADLEY & HOWELL 1991: 17 Acontias percivali occidentalis FITZSIMONS 1941 Acontias plumbeus occidentalis FITZSIMONS 1941 Acontias plumbeus occidentalis — BROADLEY 1962 Acontias percivali occidentalis — HEIDEMAN et al. 2008 Acontias occidentalis — LAMB et al. 2010 Acontias occidentalis — WAGNER et al. 2012 Acontias percivali tasmani HEWITT 1938 Acontias percivali tasmani — DANIELS et al. 2002 Acontias percivali tasmani — HEIDEMAN et al. 2008
Distribution	Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Republic of South Africa (N Transvaal), Kenya (vicinity of Voi), S Angola, NE Tanzania. percivali: restricted to Voi in south east Kenya and the eastern arc mountains of Tanzania and is separated from two other subspecies by marked physical boundaries such as the eastern arch mountains and Great Rift Valley, and considerable geographic distance (Spawls et al., 2001). tasmani: restricted to the eastern Cape in South Africa where it is often found sympatrically with A. m.orientalis (Branch, 1998). Type locality: Foot of Mount Mbololo, Teita Mts., Kenya. Map legend: - Region according to the TDWG standard, not a precise distribution map. NOTE: TDWG regions are generated automatically from the text in the distribution field and this does not always work properly. We are working on it.
Types	Holotype: MCZ
Comment	Morphology: Limbless. Subspecies: Acontias percivali occidentalis FITZSIMONS 1941 is now considered as a valid species. Hybridization: Broadley and Greer (1969) noted on the basis of aberrant specimens that A. p. tasmani and A. m. orientalis may hybridize where they occur in sympatry. Synonymy: Based on DNA sequence data, DANIELS et al. (2005) suggest that both A. m. orientalis and A. p. tasmani are invalid taxonomic designations, and should be regarded as junior synonyms of A. m. meleagris. Reproduction: viviparous
References	Auerbach,R.D. 1987. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Botswana. Mokwepa Consultants, Botswana, 295 pp. Branch, W. R. 1991. Life History Note: Acontias percivali tasmani: Size and Predation Jour. Herp. Ass. Afr. (39): 23-23 - get paper here Broadley, D. G. & HOWELL, K. M. 1991. A check list of the reptiles of Tanzania, with synoptic keys. Syntarsus 1: 1—70 Broadley, D. G. and Greer, A. E. 1969. A revision of the genus Acontias Cuvier (Sauria: Scincidae). Arnoldia Rhodesia 4 (26): 1-29. Broadley,D.G. 1962. On some reptile collections from the North-Western and North-Eastern Districts of Southern Rhodesia 1958-1961, with descriptions of four new lizards. Occ. Pap. Nat. Mus. South. Rhodesia 26 (B): 787-843 Daniels, S.R.; Neil J.L. Heideman, Martin G.J. Hendricks,<br />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 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. 1938. Description of new forms of the genus Acontias Trans. Roy. Soc. S. Africa 26: 39-48 Loveridge, A. 1935. Scientific results of an expedition to rain forest regions in Eastern Africa. I. New reptiles and amphibians from East Africa. Bull. Mus. comp. Zool. Harvard 79: 1- 19. - get paper here Mertens,R. 1955. Die Amphibien und Reptilien Südwestafrikas. Aus den Ergebnissen einer im Jahre 1952 ausgeführten Reise. Abh. senckenb. naturf. Ges. (Frankfurt) 490: 1-172 Spawls, S. & Rotich, D. 1997. An annotated checklist of the lizards of Kenya. J. East African Nat. Hist. 86: 61-83 - get paper here Spawls, S.; Howell, K.; Drewes, R.C. & Ashe, J. 2001. A field guide to the reptiles of East Africa. Academic Press, 543 pp. [reviews in HR 34: 396 and Afr. J. Herp. 51; 147]
External links	IUCN Red List - Acontias percivali - Least Concern, LC Google images Profile of Acontias percivali on Reptarium

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