''Lycophidion hellmichi'', known commonly as Hellmich's wolf snake or Kaokoveld wolf snake, is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

oviparous Oviparous animals are animals that reproduce by depositing fertilized zygotes outside the body (i.e., by laying or spawning) in metabolically independent incubation organs known as eggs, which nurture the embryo into moving offsprings kno ...

, nonvenomous

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

, 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 ...

Lamprophiidae The Lamprophiidae are a family of snakes found throughout much of Africa, including Seychelles. There are 89 species as of July 2022. Biology Lamprophiids are a diverse group of snakes. Many are terrestrial but some are fossorial (e.g. '' Ambly ...

. The species is native to southern

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 ...

Geographic range

''Lycophidion hellmichi'' is found in southwestern

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

and northwestern

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

, though it is thought to have once had a larger geographic range that included the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

Habitat

''Lycophidion hellmichi'' favors rocky areas of

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

and

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...

, in the

Namib Desert The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

, at altitudes of .

Description

''Lycophidion hellmichi'' has the following scalation. The first

labial scale The labial scales are the scales of snakes and other scaled reptiles that border the mouth opening. These do not include the median scales on the upper and lower jawsWright AH, Wright AA. 1957. Handbook of Snakes. Comstock Publishing Associates (7 ...

should be in contact with the

postnasal scale In reptiles, the nasal scale refers to the scale that encloses the nostril. Mallow D, Ludwig D, Nilson G (2003). ''True Vipers: Natural History and Toxinology of Old World Vipers''. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing Company. 359 pp. . Somet ...

(s). It has more than 190

ventral scales In snakes, the ventral scales or gastrosteges are the enlarged and transversely elongated scales that extend down the underside of the body from the neck to the anal scale. When counting them, the first is the anteriormost ventral scale that cont ...

; with more than forty subcaudals in males, and more than thirty in females. Only one male specimen was collected, east of Etengua,

. It was found to be in total length, from snout to tip of tail. The largest female, the

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

found in Kapolopopo, Angola, was in total length.

Discovery

Laurent described ''L. hellmichi'' from “''Kapolopopo, desert de Mossamedes'' " in 1964, and included ''L. c. capense'' (Hellmich 1957, Entre Rios) in the synonymy, which was the first record of the species in Angola. Laurent assigned a number of Namibian specimens to ''L. hellmichi'' in 1968, which

Broadley Broadley is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Alan Broadley (1920–1997), Australian rules footballer * Alexander Meyrick Broadley (1847–1916), British historian, author, and barrister * Denise Broadley (1913–2007), Britis ...

later realized were a new species, '' L. namibianum''. The only remaining Namibian specimen of ''L. hellmichi'' is from the

Kaokoveld The Kaokoveld Desert is a coastal desert of northern Namibia and southern Angola. Setting The Kaokoveld Desert occupies a coastal strip covering , from 13° to 21°S and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Namibian savanna woodl ...

, and Broadley recorded another Angolan specimen from Quissange. It therefore appears to be known from only three specimens.

Diet, behavior and longevity

''Lycophidion hellmichi'' likely preys upon geckos, skinks, and other small lizards, which it kills by constriction. Its lifespan is likely between fifteen and twenty years.

Etymology

Hellmich's wolf snake was named after Walter Hellmich (1906-1974), a prominent German zoologist. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). ''The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. . (''Lycophidion hellmichi'', p. 120).