Atractaspis bibronii Smith 1849

Atractaspis bibronii Smith, 1849 Material (one specimen): One adult specimen (MHNCUP/REP 321; Fig. S58), collected from Distrito de Mossamedes [=Moçâmedes] [-15.20000º, 12.15000º, 24 m a.s.l.] Namibe Province, date unknown. Comments: Atractaspis bibronii is known from sub-Saharan Africa countries, ranging from Kenya and southern Somalia south to Zimbabwe, west to Angola, Namibia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as eastern populations of South Africa and Eswatini (Marques et al. 2018). Portillo et al. (2019), in a recent review of the evolutionary history of the subfamily Atractaspidinae, found that several lineages of A. bibronii differed significantly from each other and are likely to represent several cryptic species, which is not surprising given the species’ extensive geographic distribution. Shortly thereafter, Zaher et al. (2019) recognized Atractaspididae as a full family. Ferreira did not cite any specimen of A. bibronii.
Published as part of Santos, Bruna S., Marques, Mariana P., Bauer, Aaron M. & Ceríaco, Luis M. P., 2021, Herpetological results of Francisco Newton's Zoological Expedition to Angola (1903 – 1906): a taxonomic revision and new records of a forgotten collection, pp. 1-80 in Zootaxa 5028 (1) on page 30, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5028.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/5453967
{"references":["Marques, M. P., Ceriaco, L. M. P., Blackburn, D. C. & Bauer, A. M. (2018) Diversity and distribution of the amphibians and terrestrial reptiles of Angola atlas of historical and bibliographic records (1840 - 2017). Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences, Series 4, 65 (Supplement 2), 1 - 501.","Portillo, F., Stanley, E. L., Branch, W. R., Conradie, W., Rodel, M. - O., Penner, J., Barej, M. F., Kusamba, C., Muninga, W. M., Aristote, M. M., Bauer, A. M., Trape, J. - F., Nagy, Z. T., Carlino, P., Pauwels, O. S. G., Menegon, M., Ineich, I., Burger, M., Zassi-Boulou, A. - G., Mazuch, T., Jackson, K., Hughes, D. F., Behangana, M. & Greenbaum, E. (2019) Evolutionary history of burrowing asps (Lamprophiidae: Atractaspidinae) with emphasis on fang evolution and prey selection. PLoS ONE, 14 (4), e 0214889, 1 - 32. https: // doi. org / 10.1371 / journal. pone. 0214889","Zaher, H., Murphy, R. W., Arredondo, J. C., Graboski, R., Machado-Filho, P. R., Mahlow, K. m Montingelli, G. G., Quadros, A. B., Orlov, N. L., Wilkinson, M., Zhang, Y. & Grazziotin, F. G. (2019) Large-scale molecular phylogeny, morphology, divergence-time estimation, and the fossil record of advanced caenophidian snakes (Squamata: Serpentes). PLoS ONE, 14 (5), e 0217035, 1 - 86. https: // doi. org / 10.1371 / journal. pone. 0217959"]}