Nessia deraniyagalai
Nessia deraniyagalai, commonly known as Deraniyagala's snake skink or Deraniyagala's nessia, is a species of limbless skink endemic to the island of Sri Lanka.
| Nessia deraniyagalai | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Reptilia |
| Order: | Squamata |
| Family: | Scincidae |
| Genus: | Nessia |
| Species: | N. deraniyagalai |
| Binomial name | |
| Nessia deraniyagalai Taylor, 1950 | |
Etymology
The specific name, deraniyagalai, is in honor of Sri Lankan zoologist Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala.[1]
Habitat & distribution
N. deraniyagala is known only from dry northeastern Sri Lanka, where a single specimen was collected north of Trincomalee, near the shore, on a small hillock of about 10 m (33 ft) elevation.
Description
N. deraniyagalai has scales in 20 rows at midbody. The loreals are paired, the anterior much higher. The frontoparietal is broader than the frontal. The lower eyelid is movable. There are five supralabials, the first long, the second under the orbit.
The dorsum is brown, each scale with a dark brown spot, giving the appearance of longitudinal stripes. A blackish brown area above the eye continues to the top of the snout.
References
- Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (Nessia deraniyagalai, p. 70).
External links
Further reading
- Taylor EH (1950). "Ceylonese Lizards of the Family Scincidae". Univ. Kansas Sci. Bull. 33 (13): 481-518. (Nessia deraniyagalai, new species, pp. 516–518, Figure 8).