Zygaspis vandami (FITZSIMONS, 1930)

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Higher Taxa	Amphisbaenidae, Amphisbaenia, Lacertoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies
Common Names	E: Van Dam’s Dwarf Worm Lizard
Synonym	Amphisbaena vandami FITZSIMONS 1930 Zygaspis violacea vandami — FITZSIMONS 1943: 380 Zygaspis violacea vandami — LOVERIDGE 1951 Zygaspis violacea vandami — WELCH 1982: 12 Zygaspis vandami vandami — BROADLEY & BROADLEY 1997 Zygaspis vandami — GANS 2005: 39 Zygaspis vandami — BATES et al. 2014: 157
Distribution	South Africa (Northern and Mpumalanga Provinces) Type locality: Louw’s Creek, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa.
Reproduction	oviparous
Types	Holotype: DNMNH (= TM) (Transvaal Museum)
Diagnosis	Unfortunately 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 2892 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details.
Comment	Synonymy: Has been treated as synonym of Zygaspis violacea (e.g. LOVERIDGE 1941). Sympatric with Z. quadrifrons in the N Krüger National Park. Habitat: Z. v. vandami FitzSimons usually under stones or logs on sandy or humus-rich soils along the eastern escarpment of South Africa, while Z. v. arenicola is found in alluvial sands on the Mozambique Plain, extending into north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, north-eastern Swaziland, and inland to the Cretaceous sands of south-eastern Zimbabwe (Jacobsen 1989, as Z. violacea; Broadley & Broadley 1997; Litschka, Koen & Monadjem 2008). Subspecies: Zygaspis vandami arenicola has been elevated to full species status.
Etymology	Named after the collector of the types, G.P.F. van Dam, Esq. Z. v. arenicola was named after Latin areni-cola, an inhabitant of sand.
References	BATES, M.F., & MAGUIRE, D. 2009. Zygaspis vandami arenicola Broadley & Broadley, 1997. African Herp News (47): 43-44 - get paper here 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. Bates, Michael F. 2018. Catalogue of reptiles from Mozambique in the collection of the National Museum, Bloemfontein, South Africa. Indago 34 (2): 135–147 Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins, and Michael Grayson 2011. The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, USA - get paper here Broadley, Donald G. & Broadley, Sheila 1997. A revision of the African genus Zygaspis Cope (Reptilia: Amphisbaenia). Syntarsus 4: 1-24 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 FitzSimons, V. F. 1930. Descriptions of new South African Reptilia and Batrachia, with distribution records of allied species in the Transvaal Museum collection. Annals Transvaal Mus. 14: 20-48. - get paper here FitzSimons, V.F. 1943. The lizards of South Africa. Transvaal Museum Memoir No.1 (Pretoria), 528 pp. Gans, C. 2005. CHECKLIST AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE AMPHISBAENIA OF THE WORLD. Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. 289: 1-130 - get paper here Loveridge, A. 1951. On reptiles and amphibians from Tanganyika Territory collected by C.J.P. Ionides. Bull. Mus. comp. Zool. Harvard 106 (4): 175- 204. - get paper here Loveridge, ARTHUR 1941. Revision of the African lizards of the family Amphisbaenidae. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard 87: 353-451. - get paper here Measey, John & Krystal A. Tolley 2013. A molecular phylogeny for sub-Saharan amphisbaenians. African Journal of Herpetology 62 (2): 100-108 - 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 Welch, K.R.G. 1982. Herpetology of Africa; a checklist and bibliography of the orders Amphisbaenia, Sauria, and Serpentes. Robert E. Krieger Pub. Co., Malabar, FL 293 pp.
External links	IUCN Red List National Center for Biotechnology Information http://www.seh-herpetology.org/images/atlas/pdf/squamata/zygvan.pdf Google images

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