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Gracililima nyassae (GÜNTHER, 1888)

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Higher TaxaLamprophiidae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Black File Snake, Dwarf File Snake
G: Schwarze Feilenschlange 
SynonymSimocephalus nyassae GÜNTHER 1888: 328
Simocephalus nyassae — BOULENGER 1893: 347
Gonionotophis degrijsi WERNER 1906: 53
Mehelya nyassae — LOVERIDGE 1939: 148
Mehelya nyassae — BROADLEY 1959
Mehelya nyassae — RASMUSSEN 1981: 176
Mehelya nyassae — HAACKE 1981: 222
Mehelya nyassae — AUERBACH 1987: 158
Mehelya nyassae — BOYCOTT 1992
Mehelya nyassae — BROADLEY 1998
Mehelya nyassae — BRANCH 1998
Gonionotophis nyassae — KELLY et al. 2011
Mehelya nyassae — WALLACH et al. 2014: 425
Gonionotophis nyassae — BATES et al. 2014: 361
Gonionotophis nyassae — MALONZA et al. 2017
Gonionotophis nyassae — SPAWLS et al. 2018: 409
Gracililima nyassae — BROADLEY et al. 2018
Gonionotophis nyassae — CHIPPAUX & JACKSON 2019: 215
Gracililima nyassae — TRAPE 2023: 464
Gracililima nyassae — STANDER 2023: 278 
DistributionZimbabwe, Botswana, Mozambique, NE Republic of South Africa, Eswatini (Swaziland), Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Zambia, N/S Democratic Republic of the Congo (Zaire), S Somalia

Type locality: Lake Nyassa.

degrijsi: Type locality: Usambara Mountains, Tanzania.  
Reproductionoviparous 
TypesType: BMNH 1946.1.14.52.
Syntypes: ZMB 18815, 18816, female, male [degrijsi] 
DiagnosisDiagnosis (genus): Maxillary and dentary bones bent inwards anteriorly; the 7 or 8 anterior maxillary teeth increasing in size posteriorly and followed after a diastema by 16–18 very small teeth; anterior mandibular teeth increasing in size posteriorly, the ninth or tenth largest. Head distinct from the neck, depressed; eye moderate, with vertically elliptical pupil; nostril very large. Body subtriangular; scales simply keeled, without apical pits, in 15 scale rows at midbody, those of the vertebral series enlarged and bicarinate; ventrals 164–193, with a lateral keel. Tail moderate, subcaudals paired (54–78). Hypapophyses developed throughout the vertebral column. Hemipenis bifurcating at subcaudal scale 6–7. Sequence divergence of Gracililima differs from other file snake genera by 2.1–5.0% for 16S, 10.7–13.0% for cyt b, and 0.7–1.3% for c-mos. Gracililima forms a polytomy with clades Mehelya and Gonionotophis.


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CommentType species: Simocephalus nyassae GÜNTHER 1888: 328 is the type species of the genus Gracililima BROADLEY, TOLLEY, CONRADIE, WISHART, TRAPE, BURGER, KUSAMBA, ZASSI-BOULOU & GREENBAUM 2018. 
EtymologyGracili-lima (Latin = slender + file). The name is in the feminine form.

The genus was named after Latin gracilis, slender + Latin lima, file. [“…Gracili-lima (Latin = slender + file)…”]. 
References
  • Auerbach, R.D. 1987. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Botswana. Mokwepa Consultants, Botswana, 295 pp.
  • 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.
  • Boulenger, G.A. 1893. Catalogue of the snakes in the British Museum (Nat. Hist.) I. London (Taylor & Francis), 448 pp. - get paper here
  • Boycott, R.C. 1992. An Annotated Checklist of the Amphibians and Reptiles of Swaziland. The Conservation Trust of Swaziland - get paper here
  • Branch, William R. 1993. A Photographic Guide to Snakes and Other Reptiles of Southern Africa. Cape Town: Struik Publishers, 144 S.
  • Broadley, D. & Blaylock 2013. The Snakes of Zimbabwe and Botswana. Chimaira, Frankfurt, 387 pp. [book review in Sauria 35 (2): 59 and Copeia 2014: 388] - get paper here
  • Broadley, D. G. & HOWELL, K. M. 1991. A check list of the reptiles of Tanzania, with synoptic keys. Syntarsus 1: 1—70
  • Broadley, D.G. 1959. The herpetology of Southern Rhodesia. Part I--the snakes. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. Harvard 120 (1): 1-100 [reprint 1972] - get paper here
  • 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. 1998. The reptilian fauna of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa). In: Schmidt, K.P. and Noble, G.K., Contributions to the Herpetology of the Belgian Congo... [reprint of the 1919 and 1923 papers]. SSAR Facsimile reprints in Herpetology, 780 pp.
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  • Broadley, Donald G.; Krystal A. Tolley, Werner Conradie, Sarah Wishart, Jean-François Trape, Marius Burger, Chifundera Kusamba, Ange-Ghislain Zassi-Boulou & Eli Greenbaum 2018. A phylogeny and genus-level revision of the African file snakes Gonionotophis Boulenger (Squamata: Lamprophiidae). African Journal of Herpetology, DOI: 10.1080/21564574.2018.1423578 - get paper here
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  • Günther,A. 1888. Contribution to the knowledge of snakes of tropical Africa. Ann. Mag. nat. Hist. (6) 1: 322-335 - get paper here
  • Haacke, W.D. 1981. The file snakes of the genus Mehelya in Southern Africa with special reference to South West Africa/Namibia. Madoqua 12 (4): 217-224 - get paper here
  • Hallermann, J. 2007. The status of problematic snake types of the Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Reptilia, Serpentes). Mitt. Mus. Nat.kd. Berl., Zool. Reihe 83 (2): 160–165 - 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
  • Kelly, Christopher M.R.; William R. Branch, Donald G. Broadley, Nigel P. Barker, Martin H. Villet 2011. Molecular systematics of the African snake family Lamprophiidae Fitzinger, 1843 (Serpentes: Elapoidea), with particular focus on the genera Lamprophis Fitzinger 1843 and Mehelya Csiki 1903. Mol Phylogenet Evol. 58(3): 415-426 - get paper here
  • Lanza, B. 1983. A list of the Somali amphibians and reptiles. MONITORE ZOOLOGICO ITALIANO, new Ser., SUPPL. 18 (8): 193-247 - get paper here
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  • Lyakurwa, J.V., Howell, K.M., Munishi, L.K., Treydte, A.C. 2019. Uzungwa Scarp Nature Forest Reserve; a unique hotspot for reptiles in Tanzania. Acta Herpetologica 14 (1): 3-14 - get paper here
  • Malonza, Patrick K.; David M. Mulwa, Joash O. Nyamache, Georgina Jones 2017. Biogeography of the Shimba Hills ecosystem herpetofauna in Kenya. Zoological Research 38(5): 1-11 - get paper here
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  • 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
  • Trape, J.-F. 2023. Guide des serpents d’Afrique occidentale, centrale et d’Afrique du Nord. IRD Éditions, Marseille, 896 pp.
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