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Issue: Vol. 4329 No. 4: 6 Oct. 2017
Type: Article
Published: 2017-10-06
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4329.4.1
Page range: 301–326
Abstract views: 120
PDF downloaded: 1

A new species of small and highly abbreviated caecilian (Gymnophiona: Indotyphlidae) from the Seychelles island of Praslin, and a recharacterization of Hypogeophis brevis Boulenger, 1911

Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK School of Biology, Chemistry and Forensic Science, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, WV1 1LY, UK
Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK
Museum of Zoology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1079, USA
Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK
Amphibia herpetology Indian Ocean taxonomy Vallée de Mai

Abstract

A new species of indotyphlid caecilian amphibian, Hypogeophis pti sp. nov., is described based on a series of specimens from the Seychelles island of Praslin. The type series was collected in 2013 and 2014, and a referred specimen previously identified as H. brevis Boulenger, 1911 was collected from an unspecified Seychelles locality in 1957. The new species most closely resembles the Seychelles endemic Hypogeophis brevis in being short (maximum known total length in life ca. 120 mm) and long snouted, but differs by having a less anteriorly positioned tentacular aperture and fewer primary annuli and vertebrae. In having only 67–69 vertebrae, H. pti sp. nov. is the most abbreviated extant species of caecilian reported to date.

 

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