Aru Island Groundsnake

description

Synonyms. None. Original name. Lycodon aruensis Doria, 1874: 352. Giacomo Doria (1840 – 1913; Fig. 17 A) was an influential Italian naturalist and founder of a natural history collection in Genoa, Italy. The species is named for the Aru Islands, and the description was presented in Italian.

The taxonomic history of Indo-Papuan groundsnakes, genus Stegonotus Duméril et al., 1854 (Colubridae), with some taxonomic revisions and the designation of a neotype for S. parvus (Meyer, 1874)

materials_examined

Holotype. MSNG 30186 (Fig. 18; Table 1), most likely an adult male (see below). Type locality. “ Wokan (Isole Aru) ” [Wokam, Tanahbesar Island, Maluku Province, Indonesia]. There could be some confusion regarding the specifics of the type locality. A literal translation simply yields the place name Wokam and “ Aru Islands. ” It should be noted that Doria used the plural for island (isole) and not the singular (isola), referencing the reality that “ Aru ” is actually a complex of several islands, separated by narrow saltwater channels. Specifically, “ Wokam ” may refer to Tanahbesar, one of the four larger islands that make up the landmass of the Aru Islands, but also to a sparsely populated administrative area on the westernmost extreme of Tanahbesar. The voyage that resulted in the collection of this specimen originated on Ambon and the vessel arrived at the main port of the Aru Islands at Dobo (Doria 1874). The administrative area called Wokam lies just across a saltwater channel from Dobo in the western region of Tanahbesar, and the short distance from Dobo makes it a very likely place for a landfall. Doria (1874) further recounted that the collector Beccari’s travels in the Aru

The taxonomic history of Indo-Papuan groundsnakes, genus Stegonotus Duméril et al., 1854 (Colubridae), with some taxonomic revisions and the designation of a neotype for S. parvus (Meyer, 1874)