Vol. XXIX, pp. 227-230 December 16, 1916 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



A NEW LIZARD OF THE GENUS SCELOPORUS FROM 



TEXAS. 



BY LEONHARD STEJNEGER. 



(Published by permission of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.) 



When Mr. Vernon Bailey wrote his " Biological Survey of 

 Texas" (N. Amer. Fauna, No. 25, 1905), I identified five 

 specimens collected by Mr. Wm. Lloyd at Lomita Ranch, six 

 miles north of Hidalgo, in the extreme southern corner of Texas, 

 as Sceloporus dispar Baird and Girard. This name Dr. Boulenger 

 (Cat. Liz. Brit. Mus., vol. 2, 1885, p. 232) had placed, and as 

 I now believe correctly so, in the synonymy of Sceloporus micro- 

 lepidotus. The Texas specimens differed, however, in some 

 respects from the latter species, and under the misapprehension 

 that the type of S. dispar was of northern origin , while in reality 

 it came from Vera Cruz, Mexico, I applied the latter name to 

 the Texas form (N. Amer. Fauna, No. 25, 1905, p. 42). 



A critical review of this and additional material of S. micro- 

 lepidotus from northern Mexico has led to different and rather 

 interesting results. 



In the first place it turns out that the two specimens in 

 British Museum from Duval Co., Texas, and Nuevo Leon, both 

 collected by Mr. Wm. Tayler and identified by Boulenger (Proc. 

 Zool. Soc. London, 1897, p. 485) as Sceloporus ornatus Baird, do 

 not belong to this species at all, but are identical with the 

 Hidalgo specimens. Sceloporus 07-natus, the type of which (U. 

 S. N. M. No. 2845) is before me, belongs to a totally different 

 group of the genus, viz., the S. torquatus group. It is a much 

 larger species (snout to vent 80 mm.) and has much shorter 

 toes (fourth toe from base of fifth considerably shorter than dis- 

 tance from snout to ear). It differs from the other species of 

 the S. torquatus group by having much smaller scales (12 dorsal 

 scales corresponding to the length of the shielded part of the 



41— Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., Vol. XXIX, 1916. (227) 



