You are here » home › advanced search › Trachylepis variegata

Trachylepis variegata (PETERS, 1870)

iNaturalist logo

Can you confirm these amateur observations of Trachylepis variegata?

Add your own observation of
Trachylepis variegata »

Find more photos by Google images search: Google images

Higher TaxaScincidae, Mabuyinae (Mabuyini), Scincoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Variegated Skink 
SynonymEuprepes variegatus PETERS 1870: 660
Mabuia varia var. longiloba METHUEN & HEWITT 1914: 142
Mabuya damarana FITZSIMONS 1943: 224 (part.) (not PETERS)
Mabuya longiloba longiloba — MERTENS 1955: 76
Mabuya longiloba longiloba — BROADLEY 1962
Mabuya variegata variegata — BROADLEY 1975
Mabuya variegata — GREER et al. 2000
Euprepis variegatus — MAUSFELD et al. 2002
Mabuya variegata— BAUER & BRANCH 2003
Trachylepis variegata — BAUER 2003
Mabuya variegata — COOPER 2005
Trachylepis variegata — PORTIK & BAUER 2012 
DistributionNamibia, Botswana, Republic of South Africa (absent from S Cape and E Transvaal), S Mozambique, Zambia, NW Zimbabwe

Type locality: Damaraland [Namibia], by implication.  
Reproductionovovivparous 
TypesSyntypes: ZMB 6152, NRM 2176 (6 specimens), NRM 2226 (also given erroneously as 12226, actually Trachylepis acutilabris fide Glenn Shea, pers. comm, 25 July 2019), may be also part of the original type series fide AHLANDER, see also BAUER et al. 1995). 
Diagnosis 
CommentNot listed under that name in the Zoological Record of 1870.

Distribution: Not in Angola fide Marques et al. 2018. In Angola it is replaced by T. punctata, which was previously considered as a subspecies of T. variegata. 
EtymologyApparently named after its variegated color pattern, i.e. the variable, irregular patches or bands. 
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]
  • Bauer, A.M.; Günther,R. & Klipfel,M. 1995. The herpetological contributions of Wilhelm C.H. Peters (1815-1883). SSAR Facsimile Reprints in Herpetology, 714 pp.
  • Bauer, Aaron M.; Branch, William R. & Haacke, Wulf D. 1993. The herpetofauna of the Kamanjab area and adjacent Damaraland, Namibia. Madoqua (Windhoek) 18 (2): 117-145. - get paper here
  • Branch W. R.; Haagner, G.V. 1993. The skink Mabuya ivensii: new records from Zambia and Zaire, and the status of the subspecies septemlineata Laurent 1964 and the genus Lubuya Horton. Amphibia-Reptilia 14 (2): 105-115 - get paper here
  • Branch, William R. 1993. A Photographic Guide to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Struik Publishers, 144 S.
  • Branch, William R. 1994. Herpetofauna of the Sperrgebeit [sic] Region of Southern Namibia. Herpetological Natural History 2 (1): 1-11.
  • Broadley, D. G. 1974. A review of the Mabuya lacertiformis complex in southern Africa. Arnoldia (Rhodesia) (ser. 7) 18: 1-16
  • 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
  • Broadley, D.G. 2000. A review of the genus Mabuya in southeastern Africa (Sauria: Scincidae). African Journal of Herpetology, 49 (2): 87-110 - 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
  • Cooper Jr., W.E. 2005. Duration of movement as a lizard foraging movement variable. Herpetologica 61 (4): 363-372 - get paper here
  • Dufour, P. C., Tsang, T. P., Alston, N., De Vos, T., Clusella‐Trullas, S., & Bonebrake, T. C. 2024. High‐resolution climate data reveal an increasing risk of warming‐driven activity restriction for diurnal and nocturnal lizards. Ecology and Evolution, 14(5), e11316 - get paper here
  • FitzSimons, V.F. 1943. The lizards of South Africa. Transvaal Museum Memoir No.1 (Pretoria), 528 pp.
  • Greer, A.E., Arnold, C. & Arnold, E.N. 2000. The systematic significance of the number of presacral vertebrae in the scincid lizard genus Mabuya. Amphibia-Reptilia 21 (1): 121-126 - get paper here
  • Herrmann, H.-W.; W.R. Branch 2013. Fifty years of herpetological research in the Namib Desert and Namibia with an updated and annotated species checklist. Journal of Arid Environments 93: 94–115 - get paper here
  • Huey, Raymond B.; Eric R. Pianka 1977. Seasonal Variation in Thermoregulatory Behavior and Body Temperature of Diurnal Kalahari Lizards. Ecology 58 (5):1066-1075
  • Mausfeld,P.; Vences, M. Schmitz, A. & Veith, M. 2000. First data on the molecular phylogeography of scincid lizards of the genus Mabuya. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 17 (1): 11-14 - 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 - get paper here
  • Methuen,P.A. & Hewitt,J. 1914. [The Percy Sladen Memorial Expedition to Great Namaqualand 1912-1913.] Records and descriptions of the reptiles and batrachians of the collection. Annals Transvaal Mus. 4 (3): 117-145 - get paper here
  • Peters, Wilhem Carl Hartwig 1870. Förtekning pa de af J. Wahlberg i Damaralandet insamlade Reptilierna. Oefversigt Kongl.Vet. Akad. Förhandl. 26 (7): 657-662
  • Pianka, Eric R. 1971. Lizard species density in the Kalahari Desert. Ecology 52 (6): 1024-1029 - get paper here
  • Portik, Daniel M. 2009. Comparative Phylogeography of Two Skink Species in Southern Africa MSc thesis, Villanova, 212 pp. - get paper here
  • Portik, Daniel M. & Aaron M. Bauer 2012. Untangling the complex: mole cular patterns in Trachylepis variegata and T. punctulata (Reptilia: Scincidae). African Journal of Herpetology 61 (2): 128-142; DOI:10.1080/21564574.2012.721808 - get paper here
  • Schleicher, Alfred 2015. Reptilien Namibias. Namibia Scientific  Society, 276 pp.
  • 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
 
External links  
Is it interesting? Share with others:


Please submit feedback about this entry to the curator