Preliminary notes on the taxonomy of Tarentola annularis and T. ephippiata (Sauria: Gekkonida)

Among a large collection of West African lizards sent to me for identification early in 1952 by l'lnstitut Français d'Afrique Noire were a number of individuals belonging to the genus Tarentola. The latest taxonomic treatment of Tarentola available at that time was by Loveridge (1947). In his study he had considered Tarentola annularis and T. ephippiata to be geographical races of a single species, the subspecies annularis occurring in Egypt, Sinai, Eritrea, Ethiopia and British Somaliland and the subspecies ephippiata occurring to the west of these areas, in Nigeria, French West Africa, Portuguese Guinea and Gambia. He also synonymised T. senegalensis Boulenger with ephippiata and suggested that T. hoggarensis Werner might be a synonym too. Thus, according to Loveridge, on geographical grounds the I.F.A.N. specimens should have been referable to the western race ephippiata but it was evident from an examination of the individuals that they belonged to two forms, neither of which agreed with the characters given by Loveridge for annularis or ephippiata, and that the forms were occuring together at the same localities. However, an analysis of his tabulated data on the scale counts for ephippiata and annularis showed no clear cut differences between the two races except on the scansor count of the first toe. Furthermore, an examination of the type of T. senegalensis (B.M. 1946.8.9.88) which was described from Gorée, Senegal, showed that the scale counts of the interorbitals, tubercle rows, scansors under the first and fourth toes and the gulars (18 : 14 : 18 : 17 : 23) fell within the same limits as topotypic T. annularis (Egypt) (18 : 14 : 19 : 20 : 25) and well outside the range of variation of the cotypes of T. ephippiata (14 : 15/16 : 14/16 : 14/15 : 16/17). It was apparent that Loveridge had not examined the type