ANCHIETA’S SHOVEL-SNOUT LIZARD

Meroles anchietae (Bocage, 1867)

MATERIAL.— Praia do Navio coastal dunes, ca 124 km SSW of Namibe, 8 December 2013, 16º16ʹ29.1ʺS, 11º49ʹ05.0ʺE, 8 m (CAS 254773) .

COMMENTS.— Bocage (1867) described this species from “Mossamedes” (Bocage 1867). Surprisingly, this remains the only published locality for this species in Angola (Bocage, 1867, 1895), despite it being common and widely distributed in barchan dunes from the Klinghardt Mountains north through the Namib of western Namibia. In the Newton collections in Porto, there are several uncatalogued specimens corresponding to this species from “Mossamedes” and the Ditsong National Natural History Museum has material collected by Wulf Haacke from Porto Alexandre and Foz de Cunene.