Vol. 30, pp. 163-164 October 23, 1917 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A NEW ANTILLEAN SPHAERODACTYLUS. 

 BY THOMAS BARBOUR. 



Not long since Dr. Don W. Griswold, in charge of the hook- 

 worm campaign in the West Indies for the Rockefeller Board, 

 sent me some additional reptiles from Antigua. His previous 

 findings there included the interesting Ameiva griswoldi Barbour 

 (Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 29, 1916, p. 216). The beautiful little 

 creature which is the subject of this notice may be called 



Sphaerodactylus elegantulus, sp. now 



Type: M. C. Z. No. 12,084, from the island of Antigua, British West 

 Indies, collected by Don W. Griswold, M. D., in 1917. 



Snout rather short but acute, the distance from tip of snout to eye being 

 about equal to distance of eye from ear opening, and nearly three times 

 the diameter of the eye, which is rather small ; rostral rather large with 

 a long median cleft behind; nostril between rostral, first supralabial, two 

 (?) small postnasals and a somewhat enlarged supranasal which is sepa- 

 rated from its fellow on the opposite side by a single scale, which is 

 slightly smaller than one of the supranasals ; these three scales border 

 the rostral posteriorly ; three large supralabials to the center of the eye ; 

 above the middle of the eye the usual supraciliary spine is indicated by a 

 single slightly prominent tubercle on each side; head and body, except 

 belly covered with tiny round granular scales, those of crown of head by 

 far the smallest, belly scales smooth, round, slightly imbricate ; mental 

 large, as large as rostral, followed by a very large, a medium sized and a 

 very small infralabial; two small squarish postmentals slightly enlarged, 

 scales of throat and chest granular; scales of limbs, round, flat or slightly 

 swollen, not imbricate; scales on tail in whorls, squarish, flat, not imbri- 

 cate, and larger on the lower than on the upper surface or sides. 



Color: rich mahogany brown, the head lighter than the body; very 

 narrow pure white cross bands arranged as follows, one on nape, one just 

 anterior to and another just behind fore limbs, two across mid body 

 region, one just before and another just behind hind limbs, four on tail 

 the two distal rings more or less broken into dots. All of these rings are 



40— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. 30. 1917. (163) 



