Trachylepis sulcata (Peters, 1867), 1895

Ceríaco, L. M. P., De Sá, S., Bandeira, S., Valério, H., Stanley, E. L., Kuhn, A. L., Marques, M. P., Vindum, J. V., Blackburn, D. C. & Bauer, A. M., 2016, Herpetological Survey of Iona National Park and Namibe Regional Natural Park, with a Synoptic List of the Amphibians and Reptiles of Namibe Province, Southwestern Angola, Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences 63 (2), pp. 15-61 : 34

WESTERN ROCK SKINK

Trachylepis sulcata (Peters, 1867)

MATERIAL.— INP, Rio Curoca in Pediva Hot Springs area, 3 December 2013, 16º17´0.93ʺS, 12º33ʹ39.81ʺE, 247 m ( CAS 254853 ) ; Leba Pass , 5 December 2013, 15º4ʹ12.1ʺS, 13º14ʹ36.2ʺE, 1680 m ( CAS 254875 ) ; Namibe-Lubango road, 2 km east (by road) of Mangueiras , south side of the road, 5 December 2013, 15º2ʹ40.7ʺS, 13º9ʹ31ʺE, 625 m ( CAS 254886 ) , 15º2ʹ40.8ʺS, 13º9ʹ32.6ʺE, 664 m ( CAS 254888 ) .

COMMENTS.— Trachylepis sulcata is a rupicolous skink ranging from the Western Cape Province of South Africa north to southern Angola. Trachylepis sulcata ansorgii ( Boulenger 1907b) was described from southern Angola to accommodate specimens with bright throat and infralabial coloration. Laurent (1964a) and Mertens (1971) considered it valid and the latter identified some Namibian specimens as intergrades between T. s. ansorgii and T. s. sulcata , whereas Haacke (1972) considered specimens on the Namibian side of the Kunene river to be referable to T. s. ansorgii . Some specimens from west of the Great Escarpment in northwestern Namibia exhibit the diagnostic coloration of ansorgii , but the two subspecies seem to have no fixed differences in scalation ( Bauer et al. 1993). Although Portik et al. (2011) did not include typical T. s. ansorgii in their molecular sampling, preliminary integration of samples from our collection into their data set reveals no significant difference from putative T. s. ansorgii from Namibe and the nominotypical form. We therefore treat T. sulcata as a monotypic species.