Cynisca schaeferi (STERNFELD, 1912)

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Higher Taxa	Amphisbaenidae, Amphisbaenia, Lacertoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies
Common Names	E: Cameroon Worm Lizard
Synonym	Chirindia schaeferi STERNFELD 1912: 150 Cynisca schaeferi — GANS 1987: 63 Cynisca schaeferi — BRANCH et al. 2003 Cynisca schaeferi — GANS 2005: 29
Distribution	Cameroon Type locality: Yapoma
Reproduction	oviparous
Types	Holotype: lost, was ZMB 22367 (lost according to Gans et al. 1997)
Diagnosis	DIAGNOSIS: Preocular supralabials, nasal, prefrontal, preocular, and ocular fused, with shallow blind suture entering a shallowly delimited fused shield from above the level of the eye. Subrectangular frontal, parietal, and pentagonal occipital discrete. First postocular supralabial very large, in contact with frontal. A single trapezoidal temporal dorsal to the first postsupralabial, followed by one smaller one lateral to the occipital. Head pointed. 2 supralabials and 2 infralabials. Mental fused with first infralabials anteriorly; a large postgenial flanked by one or two small segments; enlarged rectangular malar. 241-252 body annuli; 25-26 caudal annuli. Midbody segments, 12 dorsal, 10 ventral. Median ventral segments enlarged, paired. 12 or 0 precloacal pores. Autotomy site at 13th caudal annulus. (Gans 1987: 63)
Comment	Abundance: only known from the type locality (Meiri et al. 2017). This is one of the species called 'lost' and 'rediscovered' by Lindken et al. 2024.
Etymology	Named after Brothers Hans Schäfer (b. 1884) and Dr. Fritz Schäfer (d. 1911), who both collected natural history specimens in Africa.
References	Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA - get paper here Branch, William R., Oliver S. G. Pauwels and Marius Burger 2003. Re-discovery of Cynisca bifrontalis in Gabon, with additional notes on Monopeltis galeata (Reptilia: Amphisbaenia). African Journal of Herpetology 52 (2): 93-100 - get paper here Chirio, L. & Lebreton, M. 2007. Atlas des reptiles du Cameroun. MNHN, IRD, Paris 688 pp. Gans, C. 2005. CHECKLIST AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE AMPHISBAENIA OF THE WORLD. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 289: 1-130 - get paper here Lindken T.; Anderson, C. V., Ariano-Sánchez, D., Barki, G., Biggs, C., Bowles, P., Chaitanya, R., Cronin, D. T., Jähnig, S. C., Jeschke, J. M., Kennerley, R. J., Lacher, T. E. Jr., Luedtke, J. A., Liu, C., Long, B., Mallon, D., Martin, G. M., Meiri, 2024. What factors influence the rediscovery of lost tetrapod species? Global Change Biology, 30: 1-18 - get paper here Meiri, Shai; Aaron M. Bauer, Allen Allison, Fernando Castro-Herrera, Laurent Chirio, Guarino Colli, Indraneil Das, Tiffany M. Doan, Frank Glaw, Lee L. Grismer, Marinus Hoogmoed, Fred Kraus, Matthew LeBreton, Danny Meirte, Zoltán T. Nagy, Cristiano d 2017. Extinct, obscure or imaginary: the lizard species with the smallest ranges. Diversity and Distributions - get paper here Sternfeld, R. 1912. Eine neue Scincidengattung aus Südafrika und eine neue Amphisbaenide aus Kamerun. Sitzungsber. Ges. Naturf. Freunde Berlin 1912: 248-250 - get paper here
External links	IUCN Red List Google images

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