Psammophis orientalis, Broadley, 1977

Trape, Jean-François, Crochet, Pierre-André, Broadley, Donald G., Sourouille, Patricia, Mané, Youssouph, Burger, Marius, Böhme, Wolfgang, Saleh, Mostafa, Karan, Anna, Lanza, Benedetto & Mediannikov, Oleg, 2019, On the Psammophis sibilans group (Serpentes, Lamprophiidae, Psammophiinae) north of 12 ° S, with the description of a new species from West Africa, Bonn zoological Bulletin 68 (1), pp. 61-91 : 70

PSAMMOPHIS ORIENTALIS Broadley, 1977

Eastern Stripe-bellied Sand Snake, Psammophis oriental, Östliche Sandrennnatter

Psammophis subtaeniatus orientalis Broadley, 1977 , Arnoldia Rhod. 8, No, 12: 17. Type locality: Morogoro, Tanzania. Holotype: MCZ 146965; Broadley & Howell, 1991: 27; Brandstätter, 1995: 194 (part).

Psammophis orientalis Broadley, 2002: 94 ; Spawls et al., 2002: 405.

Description. (147 specimens examined) Nostril pierced between 2 nasals; preocular 1 (very rarely 2), in short contact with or separated from frontal; postoculars 2; temporals basically 2+2+3, but with frequent fusions; supralabials 8 (very rarely 7 or 9), the 4 th & 5 th (rarely 3 rd & 4 th, 4 th, 5 th & 6 th or 5 th & 6th) entering orbit; infralabials usually 10 (rarely 9 or 11), the first 4 (very rarely 3 or 5) in contact with anterior sublinguals; dorsal scales in 17-17-13 rows; ventrals 148–170; cloacal divided; subcaudals 95–117. Brandstätter (1995, figs 74–75) has published SEM micrographs of a dorsal scale of NMZB 23336 from Mutare, Zimbabwe.

Dorsum dark brown, top of head uniform; each scale in vertebral row paler at base, an ill-defined pale dorso-lateral stripe on scale row 4 and 5; a dark stripe across rostral, anterior nasal and upper portions of supralabials 1–4; labials white speckled with black; lower half of outer scale row and ends of ventrals white, separated by a pair of well defined black ventral lines from a yellow mid-ventral band.

Size. Largest male (NMZB 11267 – Mafia Island, Tanzania) 790 + 395 = 1,185 mm; largest female (USNM 72471 – Dodoma, Tanzania) 730 = 350 = 1,080 mm.

Remarks. This form was originally assigned to P. subtaeniatus sudanensis ( Loveridge, 1940; Broadley, 1966), but was later described from Morogoro, Tanzania, where it is sympatric with P. sudanensis .

Habitat. Dry savannas on the east coast from Kenya south to about Latitude 23°S in Mozambique, sometimes sympatric with P. subtaeniatus in southeastern Zimbabwe.

Distribution. East Africa from coastal Kenya, south through Tanzania, Malawi, eastern Zimbabwe and Mozambique to the Bazaruto archipelago and adjacent mainland.