Philothamnus carinatus (Anderson, 1901)

Figure 18C

Chlorophis carinatus Andersson, 1901: 9 . Type locality: “Mapanja, Cameroon ” and “ Cameroon ”. Restricted to Mapanja by Mertens (1964).

Philothamnus nigrofasciatus Buchholz & Peters, 1875: 199 . Type locality: “Cameruns”.

Philothamnus heterodermus carinatus Andersson, 1901: Loveridge 1951: 6.

Distribution. This species is widespread from West Africa (Guinea Konakry) to East Africa (Kenya) and southward to southern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In Equatorial Guinea it has been recorded in Bioko at Bococo (Mertens 1941; Loveridge 1958), Moka (Mertens 1964a) and Bahía de San Carlos (Boulenger 1906; Capocaccia 1961a), and in Río Muni at Monte Alén National Park (Lasso et al. 2002), including Monte Mitra (Gonwouo & Nsang 2005) (Map 21B).

Comments. All the specimens examined by us have 13 scale rows at mid-body. This species was treated by some authors as a subspecies of P. heterodermus (Loveridge 1958) . However, it has been suggested that P. carinatus could represent a species complex (Engelbrecht et al. 2019). It is formed by at least two main clades, one ranging across Gabon-western Republic of the Congo and the other occurring at the eastern of Democratic Republic of the Congo (Engelbrecht et al. 2019). The Philothamnus carinatus species complex is sister to P. heterodermus (Engelbrecht et al. 2019) .

The specimen recorded from Bahía de San Carlos, Bioko, by Boulenger (1906) was subsequently cited by Loveridge (1958) as P. heterodermus heterodermus and re-identified by Capocaccia (1961a) as P. heterodermus carinatus . Based on the number of scale rows at mid-body (13 scale rows), we follow Capocaccia (1961a) and Mertens (1964) in considering this specimen as P. carinatus .

Specimens examined. Eleven specimens. Río Muni: Miboman, 1985–1986 (EBD 20927–20930) ; Miboman (30 km from Niefang), 25 February 1987 (EBD 25018, EBD 25020–25021) ; Miboman (road to Niefang), 28 July 1987 (EBD 27548); Miboman, 06 September 1986 (EBD 20792); Ayamiken, 01 August 1986 (EBD 25019, EBD 25022) .