A further new species of limbless skink, genus Paracontias, from eastern Madagascar

Abstract

We describe a new species of the genus Paracontias from a rain forest in the northern Central East of Madagascar based on a single specimen. Paracontias kankana sp. nov. is unique among all known species of Paracontias by exhibiting large loreals meeting each other in midline dorsally, separating the rostral from the frontonasal scale. All other known Paracontias species have the rostral in broad contact with the frontonasal. In the new species, the nasal scale is in contact with the first supral-abial, a character shared with P. brocchii, P. milloti, P. rothschildi and an unnamed species, but distinguishing it from other known congeners. The type locality is a forest fragment heavily threatened by slash-and-burn agriculture, but the species may well be present in some nearby protected areas and probably also occurs at Marojejy.