Leptotyphlops wilsoni Hahn, 1978

Razzetti, Edoardo, Sindaco, Roberto, Grieco, Cristina, Pella, Francesca, Ziliani, Ugo, Pupin, Fabio, Riservato, Elisa, Pellitteri-Rosa, Daniele, Butikofer, Luca, Suleiman, Ahmed Saeed & Al-Aseily, Badar Awadh, 2011, Annotated checklist and distribution of the Socotran Archipelago Herpetofauna (Reptilia), Zootaxa 2826, pp. 1-44 : 17

Leptotyphlops wilsoni Hahn, 1978

Leptotyphlops wilsoni Hahn, 1978: 478 , Fig. 1, Tab. 1 .—Locus typicus: “Kirschon, Socotra Island; elevation 634 meters”. Leptotyphlops "spp.".— Corkill & Cochrane, 1966: 496.

Leptotyphlops wilsoni .— Hahn, 1980: 82.

Leptotyphlops cf. wilsoni .— Rösler & Wranik, 2004: 527, Pl. 41.

Leptotyphlops wilsoni . — Rösler & Wranik, 2006a: 126, 128.

Leptotyphlops sp.— Rösler & Wranik, 2006a: 126, 128.

Myriopholis wilsoni . — Adalsteinsson, Branch, Trape, Vitt & Hedges, 2009: 11, 28, 38.

Known from several localities of the Hajhir massif, with a single old lowland record from Hakari in the Noged plain, recently studied by Rösler & Wranik (2004); our records confirm this scenario.

Habitat. Sparse and dense Croton and Buxus shrublands with scattered trees ( Dracaena and Boswellia ), forested areas, palm groves near the seacoast, along wadis, often with scattered stones, up to 995 m (Qaroni).

Original data. Fig. 29. Go'o area, Diksam plateau, Central Noged, Wadi Ayhaft.

Bibliographic data. Corkill & Cochrane (1966), Hahn (1978), Schätti & Desvoignes (1999), Rösler & Wranik (2004, 2006a).

General distribution. A Socotran endemic.

Remarks. Rösler & Wranik (2004) observed relevant morphological variation among the specimens examined and provisionally assigned them to Leptotyphlops cf. wilsoni . Two years later these authors further improved their taxonomical hypotheses assigning part of the material they studied to Leptotyphlops wilsoni and part to a new undescribed species “ Leptotyphlops sp.” ( Rösler & Wranik, 2006a). Adalsteinsson et al. (2009) followed Rösler & Wranik (2006a) indicating four species of worm snakes ( Myriopholis ) distributed on Socotra Island. Since Rösler & Wranik (2006a) have never formally described their unnamed taxon, we adopt here a conservative approach considering all these specimens as conspecific, pending further evidence.