Pachydactylus angolensis LOVERIDGE 1944
Adult male of Pachydactylus angolensis.
© W.D. Haacke
Originalbeschreibung / Original description:
Holotype: A.M.N.H. No. 47874, an adult male from Hanha, Benguela Province, Angola, collected by Arthur Vernay, Herbert Lang, and Rudyerd Boulton, May 17, 1925.
Paratypes: A.M.N.H. No. 47872, a gravid female from Lobito Bay, Angola, collected by Herbert Lang, April 24, 1925, and Museum of Comparative Zoölogy, No. 46856, a male with same data as type, bit collected May 13, 1925.
Diagnosis: Most nearly related to P.s.scutatus Hewitt, which that author considered allied to P.montanus Methuen and Hewitt, but which appears to be, in reality, a further development of the scaly-backed P.p.punctatus Peters. In P.s.scutatus the keeled scales covering almost the entire back are called tubercles by FitzSimons in his description of robertsi, here relegated to subspecific rank. Either designation is equally applicable, for within this genus the gradation from granule to scales and from scale to tubercle almost defy distinctive definition.
From its nearest allies the new race may be distinguished as follows:
Description: Snout acuminate, slightly convex; ear-opening moderate, subcircular or vertically or horizontally oval; granules on snout flattened, smooth, much larger than those on occiput, which are intermixed with a few enlarged tubercles; mental as broad as, or slightly narrower than, adjacent labials; gulars minute, granular, juxtaposed.
Back, except for a narrow vertebral strip where the scales are small, almost entirely covered with large, strongly keeled, juxtaposed or imbricate scales (tubercles) among which occasional smaller than dorsal, those in middle subequal to those toward sides, imbricate, limbs short, the adpressed hind limb reaching the wrist; digits long, slender, scarcely more strongly dilated at apex than at base, inferiorly with subdigital scansors, four (three to four in paratypes) under the first toe, five under the fourth, followed by transversely enlarged lamellae, five under the first toe, nine (eigth to ten in paratypes) under the fourth; tail subcylindrical, tapering, covered above with small, smooth, or obtusely keeled scales, below with the median series is distinctly enlarged; on either side of base of tail in both sexes is a row of three white, flattened, pointed tubercles, with a smaller one below; tail at least as long as head and body.
Color: Above, grayish to reddish brown; a dark brown streak from nostril passes through eye to above ear-opening; crown of head almost uniformly pale; limbs more or less uniform; back with scattered white spots (which tend to form narrow transverse lines in one paratypes); tail uniformly pale gray. Below, whitish, uniform.
Size: Length of head and body in male type, 35 mm.; length of tail. 33+ mm., being incomplete. Length of head and body in female paratypes, 42 mm., tail missing.
Remarks: Withhin the genus Pachydactylus the character cited in the diagnosis is unstable in some members of the genus, stable in other. As it holds for all three Angolan geckos, I prefer not to cite other minor differences which may prove inconstant when series of s. scutatus (descibed from an adult and juvenile) and s. robertsi (known only from the holotype) become available.
In view of the variability displayed by the three s.angolensis in which the dorsum may be covered exclusively by large keeled scales (apart from the narrow vertebral strip) or with a few small, scattered scales and granules interspersed among the larger ones, I do not think specific importance can be attached to the fact that there were none in s. scutatus and only a very few in s. robertsi.