Sunday, March 15, 2015

[Herpetology • 2011] Review of the Genus Sphenomorphus Fitzinger, 1843 (Squamata: Sauria: Scincidae) in Vietnam, with Description of a New Species, Sphenomorphus tonkinensis, from Northern Vietnam and Southern China and the First Record of Sphenomorphus mimicus Taylor, 1962 from Vietnam


Sphenomorphus tonkinensis  
  Nguyen, Schmitz, Nguyen, Orlov, Böhme & Ziegler. 2011

ABSTRACT
 We describe a new forest skink species of the genus Sphenomorphus based on specimens from northern Vietnam and from Hainan Island, southern China. The new species is differentiated from the congeners by the combination of the following characters: size small (SVL 35.8-48.8 mm); prefrontals in contact with each other mesially; supralabials seven; primary temporals two; external ear opening present, without lobules, tympanum slightly sunk; midbody scales in 32–34 rows; dorsal scales smooth, paravertebral scales 65–72, not widened; limbs well developed, pentadactyl; 15–19 smooth lamellae under fourth toe; free margins of upper and lower eyelids edged in white; neck, dorsum, and tail base bronze-brown with a discontinuous dark vertebral stripe; upper lateral zone black, interrupted by small light spots from behind the neck. In addition, we provide a review of Vietnamese Sphenomorphus with the first country record of Sphenomorphus mimicus. The generic allocation of Sphenomorphus devorator (allocated to Scincella), Leptoseps tetradactylus (allocated to Sphenomorphus), and Uvorimica (allocated to Sphenomorphus) is discussed.



Truong Quang Nguyen, Andreas Schmitz, Tao Thien Nguyen, Nikolai L. Orlov, Wolfgang Böhme and Thomas Ziegler. 2011. Review of the Genus Sphenomorphus Fitzinger, 1843 (Squamata: Sauria: Scincidae) in Vietnam, with Description of a New Species from Northern Vietnam and Southern China and the First Record of Sphenomorphus mimicus Taylor, 1962 from Vietnam. Journal of Herpetology. 45(2):145-154. DOI: 10.1670/09-068.1
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