Comments on the types and type localities of South African reptiles collected by Heinrich Bergius and Ludwig Krebs

Abstract

Karl Heinrich Bergius (1790–1818) and Georg Ludwig Engelhard Krebs (1792–1844) were German apothecaries living in South Africa who collected zoological material, including reptiles, for Martin Hinrich Carl Lichtenstein, director of the Zoological Museum of the Wilhelm-Friedrichs-Universität zu Berlin (ZMB). Although many of the specimens they sent to Berlin went unstudied, six species of reptiles described by Lichtenstein (1823), Wiegmann (1828, 1834) and Fitzinger (1843) were based on type material collected by them. In all cases (Sepedon rhombeata [= Causus rhombeatus], Coluber rufulus [= Lycodonomorphus rufulus], Gerrhosaurus flavigularis. Scincus homolocephalus [= Mabuya homalocephala], Cricochalcis aenea [= Chamaesaura aenea] and Pachydactylus bergii [= P geitje]) it is possible to restrict the type localities on the basis of the activities of the collectors. In the case of Sepedon rhombeata it is demonstrated that a recent claim (de Massary & Ineich 1994) that no type material was present in the ZMB collection at the time of Lichtenstein's description is false. The type of Coluber rufulus is shown to have been collected by Bergius, rather than Krebs, as previously assumed. The consistent mis-spelling of the specific epithet of Mabuya homalocephala is identified and discussed. The type of the latter species was collected in the Eastern Cape province, suggesting its identity with the form until recently recognized as M. h. smithii.