Tetradactylus eastwoodae (Eastwood's Longtailed Seps)

[sebbe67]

Tetradactylus eastwoodae

has not been rediscovered since its description in 1913. Its extinction most likely resulted from the destruction of its original habitat for pine plantations.

[Melanie]

It is also known as

Eastwood's Longtailed Seps

[sebbe67]

A small lizard known only from two specimens collected at the type locality in 1912 or 1913. Despite several seraches no additional specimens have been found. The type locality is under (alien) pine plantations and it is probable that the species is extinct.

Known only from the type locality near Woodbush, Limpopo Province. Searches have also been conducted in the Haenertsburg and Wolkberg areas.
Population Known only from the type locality.
Habitat and Ecology Presumed to have inhabited open montane grassland.
Threats Afforestation with alien pine species and excessive burning of the the montane grassland habitat may have caused or contributed to the disappearance of this species.

www.redlist.org/search/details.php?species=21663

[another specialist]

The single reptile extinction on a mainland area was a South African lizard, Eastwood's longtailed seps (Tetradactylus eastwoodae) – it disappeared in 1913.

www.endangeredspecieshandbook.org/pdfslive/esh_chapter2.pdf

[another specialist]

Does any one have a pic? This is one i've been looking for a long time

[sebbe67]

Tetradactylus eastwoodae is at present considered extinct. It is known only from two specimens, the holotype and another specimen collected by V. A. Wager in 1928.

www.tigr.org/reptiles/species.php?genus=Tetradactylus&species=eastwoodae

[another specialist]

Jacobsen, N.H.G. (1988): Tetradactylus eastwoodae. In: South African Red Data Book - Reptiles and Amphibians, p. 23-24. Branch, W.R. Ed., S. Afr. Nat. Sci. Prog. Rpt. 151.


Not sure but if any one has access to the above it may have more info

www.tanzaniaherps.org/references.asp?id=12&f=

[Melanie]

Tetradactylus eastwoodae HEWITT & METHUEN, 1913



Higher Taxa


Gerrhosauridae, Sauria (lizards

Subspecies


Common Name


G: Eastwoods Geißel-Schildechse

Synonym


Tetradactylus eastwoodae HEWITT & METHUEN 1913
Tetradactylus eastwoodae — SALVIDIO et al. 2004

Location


SE Republic of South Africa (Transvaal)

Type locality: Woodbush Forest Reserve, Naphuno District, Limpopo Province

Holotype


holotype TM 1496 (Transvaal Museum, Pretoria

Comment


T. eastwoodae is at present considered extinct. It is known only from two specimens, the holotype and another specimen collected by by V.A. Wager in 1928 (TM 13104).

Etymology: Named after the collector, A. Eastwood.

Reproduction: oviparous

References


* Berger-Dell'mour, H. A. E. 1983. Der Übergang von Echse zu Schleiche in der Gattung Tetradactylus, Merrem. Zool. Jb. Anat., 110 (1983): 1-152
* Hewitt,J. & Methuen,P.A. 1913. Descriptions of some new Batrachia and Lacertilia from South Africa. Trans. Roy. Soc. South Africa (Cape Town) 3: 107-111
* Salvidio, S., M. Menegon, R. Sindaco and D. Moyer 2004. A new species of elongate seps from Udzungwa grasslands, southern Tanzania (Reptilia, Gerrhosauridae, Tetradactylus Merrem, 1820). Amphibia-Reptilia 25 (1): 19-27

www.jcvi.org/reptiles/species.php?genus=Tetradactylus&species=eastwoodae

[Bhagatí]

From:
www.squamata.de/c_news/c_archive/c_archive/c_tetrad.html


Tetradactylus eastwoodae Hewitt & Methuen, 1913

Hewitt, J. & Methuen, P. (1913): Descriptions of some New Batrachia and Lacertilia from South Africa. — Transaction of the Royal Society of South Africa (Cape Town), 3: 107–111. [sometimes cited as “Methuen & Hewitt”] [type locality: “Woodbush (Zoutpansberg District)”; type in TM]

www.squamata.de/c_news/c_archive/c_archive/c_tetrad.html

[Melanie]

More information

Fitzsimons (V.F.)
LIZARDS OF SOUTH AFRICA
Transvaal Museum Memoir no.1, Pretoria, July, 1943 528 pages, 8vo (250 x 165 mm), 24 plates,
Note: This book is only available in the Antiquarian trade

[Sebbe]

In the 1980s Niels H.G. Jacobsen and a team of collectors conducted several unsuccessful searches for Tetradactylus eastwoodae using drift fences, pitfall and funnel traps, as well as active searching. The latter surveys were conducted in the last remaining patches of open grassland in the Haenertsburg-Woodbush area, and on Wolkberg Range, as identified from the 1:50,000 topographic map of the area (see also (Jacobsen 1988, 1989; N.H.G. Jacobsen pers. comm.). The latter surveys were conducted in the last remaining patches of open grassland in the Haenertsburg area as identified on the 1: 50 000 topographic map (N.H.G. Jacobsen pers. comm.) e.g. in a small, now degraded area close to a stream between Woodbush Forest and Haenertsburg (this may have been where Wager collected a specimen), as well as an open area of grassland and fynbos-like vegetation adjacent to a forest that had not been burnt for about 20 years. Subsequently, in April 2008, a 10-day South African Reptile Conservation Atlas (SARCA) survey was conducted in grasslands in the Woodbush-Haenertsburg area employing both active searching and drift fence trapping, in a concerted but also unsuccessful attempt to re-discover this species (de Villiers and Burger 2008; M. Burger pers. comm.). No known captive specimens have ever been reported or are suspected to exist, so Eastwood’s Long-tailed Seps should now be considered Extinct.

Endemic to the Woodbush-Haenertsburg area in Limpopo, South Africa. The type locality is “the Woodbush (Zoutpansberg District)” (Hewitt and Methuen 1913), but much of the Woodbush area is now under exotic (especially pine) plantations (Jacobsen 1988, 1989). However, according to the book Between Woodbush and Wolkberg: The Googoo Thompson's Story (Wongtschowski 1990) the collector, Miss Eastwood (later Thompson), recalls collecting the holotype on the farm Clear Waters (the family’s name for the farm Broedersdrift 958LS), which is situated a few kilometres southwest of Woodbush (indigenous) Forest. The term ‘Woodbush’ may have been used in a broad sense to mean the area in the vicinity of Woodbush Forest, but we here restrict the type locality of Tetradactylus eastwoodae to the farm Broedersdrift 958, Pietersburg district (23°52'30"S, 29°57'E).

Presumed to have occurred in open montane grassland. Photographs in the book by Wongtschowski (1990) illustrate that at the time the holotype was collected, the area consisted of open grassland. If the species still exists it would be most likely to occur in grassland remnants in the Woodbush, Haenertsburg and Wolkberg areas of the Grassland Biome, in one or more of the following vegetation types: Woodbush Granite Grassland (Gm 25), Northern Escarpment Quartzite Sourveld (Gm 23) and Wolkberg Dolomite Grassland (Gm 26) (Mucina et al. 2006). The area of the type locality was planted over with exotic plantations in about 1950.

The habitat of this species has been largely destroyed by afforestation (pines and bluegums). Woodbush Granite Grassland is a Critically Endangered vegetation type that is negatively affected by bush encroachment, worsened due to the exclusion of fires (Mucina et al. 2006). However, frequent and severe fires are also threats should any populations still survive. (Jacobsen 1989) noted the destruction caused by the annual burning of remnant grasslands for firebreaks between plantations at Woodbush and Haenertsburg. Cultivation and urban development have played a minor role in land transformation in this vegetation type (Mucina et al. 2006).

www.iucnredlist.org/details/21663/0