Zygaspis nigra Broadley and Gans, 1969

Conradie, Werner, Keates, Chad, Verburgt, Luke, Baptista, Ninda L., Harvey, James, Júlio, Timóteo & Neef, Götz, 2022, Contributions to the herpetofauna of the Angolan Okavango-Cuando-Zambezi River drainages. Part 2: Lizards (Sauria), chelonians, and crocodiles, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e 322) 16 (2), pp. 181-214 : 189

Zygaspis nigra Broadley and Gans, 1969

Black Round-headed Worm Lizard ( Fig. 7, Map 6) Material (3 specimens): PEM R23564–5, Samanunga village, -12.93250° 18.81476°, 1,363 m asl; PEM R23984, Lungwebungu River crossing, -12.58020° 18.66773°, 1,298 m asl. Additional records: Quembo River source, -13.13586° 19.04709°, 1,368 m asl (stomach contents of Xenocalamus mechowii – PEM R23463). Description: Male (PEM R23564) with four precloacal pores; hemipenis bifurcated and extending to 6–7 th caudal annuli. Female (PEM R23564) with truncated tail at 7 th annulus. Adults have distinct black bars, while juveniles are much lighter in color; 16–17 dorsal segments per body annulus; 12 ventral segments per body annulus; 189–194 body annuli; 42–43 caudal annuli, caudal autonomy site at 7 th caudal annulus; 3 supralabials; 3 infralabials. Largest female: 216.0 + 8t mm (PEM R23565); largest male: 232.0 + 41.0 mm (PEM R23564). Habitat and natural history notes: One female contained three elongated eggs (20 x 5 mm). Two specimens were excavated by local farmers while preparing agricultural fields. Comments: Only two species of Zygaspis are known from scattered records in southern and eastern Angola ( Marques et al. 2018; Baptista et al. 2019; Butler et al. 2019). Zygaspis nigra was originally described from western Zambia, with only a few records from eastern Angola and the Zambezi Region in northeastern Namibia ( Broadley and Gans 1969; Pietersen et al. 2021). Historically this species is only known from three localities in eastern Angola ( Marques et al. 2018), so these new records double the number of known localities from Angola.