Anepischetosia maccoyi (LUCAS & FROST, 1894)

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Higher Taxa	Scincidae, Eugongylinae (Eugongylini), Scincoidea, Sauria, Squamata (lizards)
Subspecies
Common Names	E: Highlands Forest-skink
Synonym	Siaphos maccoyi LUCAS & FROST 1894: 85 Lygosoma (Leiolopisma) maccoyi — SMITH 1937: 224 Anotis maccoyi — GREER 1974 Anepischetos maccoyi — WELLS & WELLINGTON 1984: 84 Anepischetos sharmani WELLS & WELLINGTON 1984: 84 Anepischetosia maccoyi — WELLS & WELLINGTON 1985 (replacement name) Anepischetosia brindabellaensis — WELLS & WELLINGTON 1985 Hemiergis maccoyi — COGGER 1983: 165 Nannoscincus (Nannoseps) maccoyi — SADLIER 1990: 493 Nannoscincus maccoyi — MURPHY 1995 Nannoscincus maccoyi — SHEA & SADLIER 1999 Nannoscincus maccoyi — COGGER 2000: 552 Anepischetosia maccoyi — SADLIER et al. 2006 Nannoscincus maccoyi — COUPER et al. 2006: 381 Anepischetosia maccoyi — WILSON & SWAN 2010: 146 Anepischetosia maccoyi — COGGER 2014: 414
Distribution	Australia (New South Wales, Victoria) Type locality: Ringwood, Vic. [lectotype], designated by Coventry (1970).
Reproduction	oviparous
Types	Lectotype: NMV D1851, designated by Coventry (1970), collector unknown.
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Comment	Synonymy: Shea & Sadlier 1999 synonymized Anepischetosia brindabellaensis and A. sharmani with Nannoscincus (= A.) maccoyi. The genus Anepischetos is pre-occupied by Lepidoptera. Type species: Siaphos maccoyi LUCAS & FROST 1894: 85 is the type species of the genus Anepischetosia WELLS & WELLINGTON 1985. Anepischetos sharmani is the type species of the genus Anepischetos WELLS & WELLINGTON 1984: 84. Phylogenetics: Schembri et al. (2025) presented a phylogenetic analysis and found multiple clades that may correspond to A. shermani, mccoyi, and brindabellaensis. However, Schembri et al. emphasize that further studies are needed before they could be formally resurrected. Schembri et al. (2025) does provide evidence that the W&W names sharmani and brindabellaensis do apply to taxa distinct from maccoyi, but W&W described sharmani simply by comparison with the type description of maccoyi, ignoring the many hundreds of specimens of maccoyi in museum collections at the time, so many of the "diagnostic characters" they provide aren't anything like diagnostic, and for the ones that are they provided no evidence of that to show that they held up over the several hundreds of km of nearly continuous distribution between the type locality of maccoyi near Melbourne and the range of sharmani. The "diagnosis" of brindabellaensis was based on a single holotype, and only talks about the shininess of the dorsal scales (I can't see any difference when looking at specimens), and the concept that Richard and Ross created for brindabellaensis was of a taxon confined to the Brindabella Ranges. The new Schembri et al paper finds that brindabellaensis will be the available name for a very widespread species (the eastern half of the distribution of maccoyi). However, the available genetic data in that paper was insufficient to determine exactly where the changeover between maccoyi and brindabellaensis is in Victoria, with specimens continuously distributed across the region (G. Shea, pers. comm., 25 June 2025). Reference images: see Uetz et al. 2024 for high-resolution reference images for this species.
Etymology	Named after Sir Frederick McCoy, K.C.M.G. The genus name Anepischetos means 'unrestrained' and alludes to the ideal intellectual state (Wells & Wellington 1984).
References	Cogger, H. G. 2014. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, 7th ed. CSIRO Publishing, xxx + 1033 pp. - get paper here Cogger, H.G. 2000. Reptiles and Amphibians of Australia, 6th ed. Ralph Curtis Publishing, Sanibel Island, 808 pp. Couper, P., Covacevich, J., Amey, A. & Baker, A. 2006. The genera of skinks (Family Scincidae) of Australia and its island territories: diversity, distribution and identification. in: Merrick, J.R., Archer, M., Hickey, G.M. & Lee, M.S.Y. (eds.). Evolution and Zoogeography of Australasian Vertebrates. Australian Scientific Publishing, Sydney, pp. 367-384 Coventry, A. J. 1970. Reptile and amphibian type specimens housed in the National Museum of Victoria. Mem. Natl. Mus. Vic. 31: 115-124. - get paper here Greer, A.E. 1974. The generic relationships of the scincid lizard genus Leiolopisma and its relatives. Australian Journal of Zoology 31: 1-67. - get paper here Hutchinson, M.N. 1979. The reptiles of Kinglake National Park. Victorian Naturalist 96: 124-134 - get paper here Lucas, A. H. S. & Frost, C. 1894. The lizards indigenous to Victoria. Proc. R. Soc. Vict. (ns) 6: 24-92 - get paper here Murphy M J 1995. Microsympatry between two species of fossorial skink on the New South Wales south coast. Herpetofauna (Sydney) 25 (1): 51-52 Robertson, Peter; A. John Coventry 2019. Reptiles of Victoria. CSIRO Publishing, 332 pp. [review in Eipper 2020] - get paper here Sadlier R A 1990. The scincid lizard genus Nannoscincus Gunther: a reevaluation. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum 29 (3): 487-494 - get paper here Sadlier, R.A., Bauer, A.M.; Smith, S.A. 2006. A new species of Nannoscincus Gunther (Squamata: Scincidae) from high elevation forest in southern New Caledonia. Rec. Austral. Mus. 58 (1):29-36. - get paper here Schembri, R., Catullo, R.A., Shea, G.M. et al. 2025. Cold, creeping things: deep phylogeographic structure in a naturally fragmented cool-adapted skink (Scincidae; Anepischetosia) from south-eastern Australia. Conserv Genet (2025) - get paper here Shea, Glenn M; Sadlier, Ross A 1999. A catalogue of the non-fossil amphibian and reptile type specimens in the collection of the Australian Museum: types currently, previously and purportedly present. TECHNICAL REPORTS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM 15, 1999: 1-91 - get paper here Smith, M.A. 1937. A review of the genus Lygosoma (Scincidae: Reptilia) and its allies. Records of the Indian Museum 39 (3): 213-234 Swan, G.; Sadlier, R.; Shea, G. 2017. A field guide to reptiles of New South Wales. Reed New Holland, 328 pp. Uetz, P.H.; Patel, M.; Gbadamosi, Z.; Nguyen, A.; Shoope, S. 2024. A Reference Database of Reptile Images. Taxonomy 4: 723–732 - get paper here
External links	IUCN Red List National Center for Biotechnology Information http://www.amonline.net.au/herpetology/research/pdf/scincidae.pdf http://www.waite.adelaide.edu.au/cebb/sarah.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive1.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive2.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive3.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive4.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive5.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive6.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive7.htm http://www.museum.vic.gov.au/bioinformatics/lizards/images/macclive8.htm Google images

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