Eirenis aff. persicus (Anderson, 1872)

Wagner, Philipp, Bauer, Aaron M., Leviton, Alan E., Wilms, Thomas M. & Böhme, Wolfgang, 2016, A Checklist of the Amphibians and Reptiles of Afghanistan *, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 63 (13), pp. 457-565 : 506

Eirenis aff. persicus (Anderson, 1872:392, fig. 8)

1872 Cyclophis persicus Anderson, On some Persian, Himalayan, and other reptiles. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1872(2):371–404, 9 figs.

HOLOTYPE.— ZSI 4828 , from “ Bushire , Persia” [Bushehr, Iran].

LOCALITIES.— Ken Dahar ( MNHN 0.8723); Qualèh Lakou ( MZLU lxxx/6305) [see pl. 11, fig. 5 for distribution].

REMARKS.— An unambiguous identification of these specimens is not possible pending a thorough review of E. persicus . Initial data suggest that the material from Afghanistan may be more closely related to specimens from Pakistan than to the nominate subspecies (unpublished data, P. Wagner). The specimen from Paris is catalogued as “ Eirenis walteri ” and is definitely misidentified, as this taxon is only known from Turkmenistan and northeastern Iran. However, at the time of writing, the specimen is on loan and not available to us. The MZLU specimen resembles specimens from Waziristan ( Pakistan) for which the names Contia angusticeps Boulenger, 1894 and Contia mcmahoni Wall, 1911 could be available. Compared with other species of the genus, it might be that the two specimens known from Afghanistan refer to two different species and, therefore, a review of the species complex is needed. Meanwhile we recognize both of the specimens as “ Eirenis aff. persicus ”, but we are aware that they are not referable to this species sensu stricto. Leviton and Anderson (1970) mention the species because of its presence to the west, south and east of Afghanistan.