THE GENUS TETRADACTYLUS (SAURIA: GERRHOSAURINAE) IN THE CAPE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA: NEW RECORDS AND THEIR TAXONOMIC STATUS

Abstract

This paper documents new localities for the poorly known plated snake-lizards, Tetradactylus (Sauria: Gerrhosaurinae) in the Cape Province, adds a number of biological observations, discusses the implications of the new distributions, and also comments of their taxonomic status. Due to the discovery of variability in the diagnostic characters used to distinguish T. tetradactylus bilineatus and T. s. laevicauda, they are placed in the synonymy of T. tetradactylus and T. seps, respectively.