Acanthocercus ceriacoi

Acanthocercus ceriacoi Marques et al., 2022

Specimen.

Angola: Duque de Bragança: BMNH 1866.6.11.1 .

Comments.

The specimen was among the second batch of specimens collected by Bayão at Duque de Bragança, presented by Bocage to the British Museum in 1866 as “ Nº 1 - Stellio angolensis Bocage nov. sp. ” (NHMA /DF/GüntherColl/16/1/110). Bocage (1866 a) recorded several specimens as Stellio nigricollis, stating that he had first thought they represented a new species he intended to name Stellio angolensis, but refrained from doing so after consulting Günther, who referred it to Agama nigricollis . Wagner et al. (2018) regarded angolensis to be a nomen nudum and suggested that Bocage’s reference to nigricollis was an error, also noted by Bocage himself (Bocage 1895 a). We here confirm this observation, as in his letter dated 29 June 1866 Günther unambiguously wrote “ Stellio angolensis = Agama atricollis ”, and Bocage mentions also “ Agama atricollis ” in his response (AHMB /CE/G79, NHMA /DF/ZOO/200/1/185). The specimen presented to the British Museum was cited by Boulenger (1885 a) as Agama atricollis in his Catalogue of Lizards and more recently as a newly described species by Marques et al. (2022).