Type specimens in the Port Elizabeth Museum, South Africa, including the historically important Albany Museum collection. Part 2: Reptiles (Squamata)
Author
Conradie, Werner
Author
Branch, William R.
Author
Watson, Gillian
text
Zootaxa
2019
2019-04-01
4576
1
1
45
journal article
27528
10.11646/zootaxa.4576.1.1
7d3f7d13-68b6-4560-9de7-41a6b05f3776
1175-5326
2624562
0246FD5D-0A11-4E2F-9060-C95B173DD4AE
Tetradactylus fitzsimonsi
Hewitt, 1915
Annals of the Transvaal Museum, 5(2):101.
Syntype
:
PEM
R4439
;
Schoemachers Kop
[=Schoenmakerkop] near
Port Elizabeth
,
Eastern Cape Province
,
South Africa
; collector and date unknown
.
Remarks
: Although
FitzSimons (1943)
lists the cotypes as being in Port Elizabeth and Albany Museum, this must have been in error as the
type
description clearly states two specimens loaned to Hewitt from the Port Elizabeth Museum’s director F.W. FitzSimons. However, only the larger specimen (Schoenmakerskop) is currently extant in the PEM. Both
Hewitt (1915
,
1937b
) and subsequent authors questioned the second smaller specimen from Kroonstad and subsequently disregarded it (
FitzSimons 1943
;
Loveridge 1942
;
Branch 1990
) and considered the taxon to be restricted to the Port Elizabeth region.The original label gives no details for collector or the date of collection. Based on consistent morphological differences, Bates (2014) treats this as a full species.