Dipsadoboa brevirostris (STERNFELD, 1908)
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Dipsadoboa brevirostris
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| Higher Taxa | Colubridae, Colubrinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | |
| Synonym | Dipsadomorphus brevirostris STERNFELD 1908 Leptodira guineensis CHABANAUD 1920: 491 Dipsoglyphophis guineensis — BARBOUR & AMARAL 1927: 26 Crotaphopeltis duchesnii guineensis — LOVERIDGE 1941: 122 Dipsadoboa duchesnei guineensis — LAURENT 1956: 218 Dipsadoboa brevirostris — RASMUSSEN 1989 Dipsadoboa brevirostris — CHIRIO & LEBRETON 2007: 410 Dipsadoboa guineensis — TRAPE & BALDÉ 2014 Dipsadoboa brevirostris — WALLACH et al. 2014: 231 Dipsadoboa brevirostris — SENTER & CHIPPAUX 2022 |
| Distribution | Guinea (Conakry), Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, possibly Benin (Hughes 2013), Nigeria, Cameroon (RASMUSSEN 1989, BÖHME et al. 2011) Type locality: Yabassi, Cameroon. guineensis: Guinea |
| Reproduction | oviparous |
| Types | Holotype: ZMB 21710, lost fide J.B. Rasmussen (1989: 257). |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: dorsals in 17-17-13 rows; ventrals 223 - 229 and 217 - 226, males and females, respectively; anal shield undivided; subcaudals in 91 -108 and 96-111 pairs, males and females, respectively; 19-21 + II-I (2) maxillary teeth; all specimens examined (including a pregnant female) pale brown to brown; anal glands extend to caudal scale no. 4-7 [from RASMUSSEN 1989]. |
| Comment | Part of the type series of Dipsadoboa brevirostris is actually D. duchesnei (namely ZMB 21709 + 21709A) as well as Dipsadomorpus viridis. Synonymy: after RASMUSSEN 1989. Distribution: see map in RASMUSSEN 1989. TRAPE & BALDÉ 2014 do not list D. brevirostris but they list guineensis for Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Nigeria. “Both Loveridge (1941) and Laurent (1956) considered guineensis as a valid taxon, but this was not followed by Rasmussen (1989) who synonymized guineensis with brevirostris. In fact, the description of Dipsadomorphus brevirostris by Sternfeld (1908a) was based on three specimens, two of them from southern Cameroon clearly attributable to D. duchesnei (ventrals: 214, 215; subcaudals: 104, 114) and the third one from Yabassi (southwestern Cameroon) with scale counts (ventrals: 225; subcaudals: 91) close to those of Chabanaud’s specimens. Without examining Sternfeld’s (1908) lost syntypes, Rasmussen (1989) “tentatively” synonymyized guineensis with brevirostris. However this author also indicated that male specimens of D. duchesnei from Cameroon “tend to have higher ventral counts than the more eastern populations thereby indicating a cline toward Leptodira guineensis Chabanaud”. The 225 ventrals of the Yabassi specimen cannot be checked, but certainly include preventrals and thus approach or even enter the range of D. duchesnei males in this area. For this reason, we do not follow Rasmussen (1989) in attributing the three syntypes of Sternfeld to two different species. Furthermore, the occurence of “brevirostris” in Cameroon (and southeastern Nigeria), in addition to D. duchesnei, has never been supported by additional specimens despite the considerable quantity of material collected by Chirio & Lebreton (2007) in Cameroon and Akani et al. (1999) in southeastern Nigeria. For these reasons, we resurrect D. guineensis from the synonymy of D. brevirostris, a taxon that we consider a junior synonym of D. duchesnei.” (TRAPE & BALDÉ 2014) Habitat: fully arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018). |
| Etymology | Named after Latin “brevis, -e” = short and “rostrum” = beak, proboscis, trunk. |
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