Boaedon virgatus (Boie, 1827)

Lobón-Rovira, Javier, Lobón-Rovira, Baptista, Ninda L, Clark, Tyron, Verburgt, Luke, Jongsma, Gregory Fm, Conradie, Werner, and, Luis Veríssimo, Vaz, Pedro & Pinto, 2025, Filling the gaps: herpetological checklist of Mayombe National Park and Cabinda Province (Angola) shed light on one of the most unexplored corners of tropical Central Africa, African Journal of Herpetology 74 (1), pp. 1-59 : 1-59

Boaedon virgatus (Boie, 1827)

Material. ANGOLA – Cabinda Province • Nganzi; –5.1028, 12.3709; 107 m a.s.l.; (shedding). • Cacata; –5.3200, 12.5022; 32 m a.s.l.; P1.296 (roadkill); GenBank: PQ455965.

Identification. The species is characterised by having a low number of ventral scales (<198), <25 dorsal scale rows at midbody,and a venter with a central broad greyish or yellowish stripe with darker lateral edges ( Hallermann et al. 2020). The individual reported here from Cacata is almost identical (<1% 16S p -distance) to a sample from Rabi, Gabon (GenBank: AY611825 ). In Angola, first Branch (2018) and later Hallermann et al. (2020) assigned three specimens from Cabinda Province reported by Peters (1877) to this species based on morphology. This represents the first genetically corroborated record for the species from Angola.

Biology and distribution. The species is widely distributed in West Africa, north of the Congo River, from Guinea Bissau to Cabinda Province and the Congo River in DRC. Very little is known about its biology.