OCR Text |
Show 128 ON NEW REPTILES FROM BRITISH NEW GUINEA. [Julie 16, LYGOSOMA PRATTI. (Plate XIII. fig. 1.) Section Lygosoma. Body elongate, limbs short; the distance between the end of the snout and the fore limb is contained once and three fourths in the distance between axilla and groin. Head small, much depressed ; snout moderate, obtusely pointed. Lower-eyelid scaly. Nostril pierced in a single nasal; no supranasal; rostral narrowed and produced posteriorly between the nasals, forming a narrow suture with the frontonasal, which is a little broader than long and narrowly in contact with the frontal; latter as large as frontoparietals and interparietal together, much broader than the supraocular region, in contact with the first supraciliary, the first supraocular, and a very small part of the second ; four supraoculars ; seven supraciliaries; frontoparietals and interparietal distinct, subequal; parietals forming a suture behind the interparietal; no nuchals; fourth and fifth labials below the eye. Ear-opening oval, nearly as large as the eye-opening ; no auricular lobules. 36 smooth scales round the middle of the body; dorsals, especially the two vertebral series, largest. A pair of slightly enlarged praeanals. Limbs widely separated when pressed against the body. Digits short, compressed, keeled below ; subdigital lamellae mostly divided, 13 or 14 under the fourth toe. Tail very thick. Pale brown above, mottled or vermiculate with dark brown ; head and nape blackish; two oblique white streaks from below the eye to the throat; belly white. Total length 162 millim. Fore limb 14 millim. Head 15 „ Hind limb 21 „ Width of head ... 10 „ Tail (reproduced) . 75 „ Body 72 „ This new species, of which a single specimen was obtained at Dinawa, Owen Stanley Range, 4000 feet, by Mr. A. E. Pratt, is most nearly related to the Papuan L. muelleri Schleg., and clearly belongs to the same section of the genus Lygosoma. But it is also closely allied to L. lor ice Blgr., from N e w Guinea, which has been referred to the section Hinulia and evidently constitutes a connecting-link between the two sections. Having, through the kindness of Mr. Thomas Steel, of Sydney, had the loan of the type of Homolepida englishi D e Vis, I am able to confirm its identity with L. muelleri, as already pointed out by m e in the ' Zoological Record ' for 1890. TOXICOCALAMUS STANLEYANUS. (Plate XIII. fig. 3.) Rostral much broader than deep, just visible from above; inter-nasals nearly as long as the praefrontals, which are in contact with the second upper labial and with the eye; frontal small, slightly broader than the supraocular, once and three fourths as long as broad, as long as its distance-from the end of the snout, a little shorter than the parietals; one postocular; temporals 1 -f 2 |