''Letheobia'' is a
genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
of
blind snakes in the
family
Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...
Typhlopidae
The Typhlopidae are a family of blind snakes. They are found mostly in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and all mainland Australia and various islands. The rostral scale overhangs the mouth to form a shovel-like burrowing str ...
.
[ Wallach, Van (2005) "''Letheobia pauwelsi'', a new species of blindsnake from Gabon (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)." ''African Journal of Herpetology'' 54 (1): 85-91.]
Geographic range
The genus ''Letheobia'' is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...
.
Taxonomy
In 1869, the genus ''Letheobia'' was established by
Edward Drinker Cope
Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontology, paleontologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist, herpetology, herpetologist, and ichthyology, ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker fam ...
based primarily on two specimens of ''
Letheobia pallida'' from
Zanzibar
Zanzibar is a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa. It is located in the Indian Ocean, and consists of many small Island, islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. ...
, but later also including ''Letheobia caeca'' (originally ''Onychocephalus cæcus''
Duméril, 1856) from
Gabon
Gabon ( ; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa, on the equator, bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo to the east and south, and ...
.
Wilhelm Peters
Wilhelm Karl Hartwich (or Hartwig) Peters (22 April 1815 – 20 April 1883) was a German natural history, naturalist and explorer.
He was assistant to the anatomist Johannes Peter Müller and later became curator of the Natural History Museum, ...
, in 1874 when describing ''Onychocephalus lumbriciformis'' from Zanzibar and in 1878 ''Typhlops unitaeniatus'' from Kenya, considered ''Letheobia'' to be a
subgenus
In biology, a subgenus ( subgenera) is a taxonomic rank directly below genus.
In the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, a subgeneric name can be used independently or included in a species name, in parentheses, placed between the ge ...
. Nonetheless, in 1881, Peters selected ''Letheobia caeca''
Duméril as the type species for the genus. In 1883,
Boulenger decided that at best ''Letheobia'' was a subgenus of ''Typhlops'', and placed it as a junior synonym. Later in reconstructing ''Rhinotyphlops'' in 1974,
Roux-Estève moved all of ''Letheobia'' species into ''Rhinotyphlops'', mostly into her Groups IV, V and VI. However, molecular studies in the 2000s showed that ''Rhinotyphlops'', as conceived by Roux-Estève (1974), was polyphyletic, and that many if not all of Groups V and VI constituted a separate genus, for which the name ''Letheobia'' had priority. In 2007
Broadley and
Wallach formally revived the genus ''Letheobia''. In 2013, Pyron et al. considered with some certainty that ''Letheobia'' was a sister group to the combined genera ''Afrotyphlops'' and ''Megatyphlops'', while the three were then sister to ''Rhinotyphlops'', and the four were the sister to ''Typhlops''.
Species
The genus ''Letheobia'' contains the following 37 species which are recognized as being valid.
*''
Letheobia acutirostrata''
*''
Letheobia akagerae
''Letheobia'' is a genus of Scolecophidia, blind snakes in the Family (biology), family Typhlopidae.Van Wallach, Wallach, Van (2005) "''Letheobia pauwelsi'', a new species of blindsnake from Gabon (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)." ''African Journal of H ...
''
*''
Letheobia angeli''
*''
Letheobia caeca''
*''
Letheobia coecatus''
*''
Letheobia crossii''
*''
Letheobia debilis''
*''
Letheobia decorosus''
*''
Letheobia episcopus''
*''
Letheobia erythraea''
*''
Letheobia feae''
*''
Letheobia gracilis''
*''
Letheobia graueri''
*''
Letheobia jubana''
*''
Letheobia kibarae''
*''
Letheobia largeni''
*''
Letheobia leucosticta''
*''
Letheobia lumbriciformis''
*''
Letheobia manni''
*''
Letheobia mbeerensis''
*''
Letheobia newtoni''
*''
Letheobia pallida''
*''
Letheobia pauwelsi''
*''
Letheobia pembana''
*''
Letheobia praeocularis''
*''
Letheobia rufescens''
*''
Letheobia simonii''
*''
Letheobia somalica''
*''
Letheobia stejnegeri''
*''
Letheobia sudanensis''
*''
Letheobia swahilica''
*''
Letheobia toritensis''
*''
Letheobia uluguruensis''
*''
Letheobia weidholzi''
*''
Letheobia wittei''
*''
Letheobia wrayi''
*''
Letheobia zenkeri''
''
Nota bene
( ; plural: ) is the Latin language, Latin phrase meaning ''note well''.
In manuscripts, ''nota bene'' is abbreviated in upper-case as NB and N.B., and in lower-case as n.b. and nb; the editorial usages of ''nota bene'' and ''notate bene'' fi ...
'': A
binomial authority
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...
in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than ''Letheobia''.
Etymology
The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
, ''pauwelsi'', is in honor of Belgian
herpetologist
Herpetology (from Ancient Greek ἑρπετόν ''herpetón'', meaning "reptile" or "creeping animal") is a branch of zoology concerned with the study of amphibians (including frogs, salamanders, and caecilians (Gymnophiona)) and reptiles (in ...
Olivier Sylvain Gérard Pauwels.
[ Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Letheobia pauwelsi'', p. 202).]
References
Further reading
*
Cope ED (1868). "Observations on REPTILES of the Old World. Art. II". ''Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia'' 20: 316-323. (''Letheobia'', new genus, p. 322).
*
Roux-Estève R (1974). "''Révision systématique des Typhlopidae d'Afrique. Reptilia. Serpentes'' ". ''Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle Nouvelle Série – Série A, Zoologie'', Paris 87: 1-313. (in French).
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2395303
Taxa named by Edward Drinker Cope