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PROCEEDINGS OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 
Series 4, Volume 64, No. 8 
along the course of the Nile (Broadley and Bauer 1998). There is a single record from the Tassili- 
n-Ennedi, Chad (Sindaco and Jeremcenko 2008). We examined several additional museum speci¬ 
mens of Heremites vittatus that had also been incorrectly identified as T. quinquetaeniata. 
Leptotyphlopidae 
Myriopholis cairi (Dumeril and Bibron, 1844:323) 
Reported questionably form eastern Libya, without specific locality by Sochurek (1979). 
Although it is conceivable that L. cairi occurs in Libya, most records are no closer than the Nile 
Valley of Egypt or central Niger (Sindaco et al. 2013). However, Broadley et al. (2014) reported it 
from the Siwa Oasis of Egypt (BMNH 1938.8.4.50-51), only about 50 km from the Libyan bor¬ 
der, although other authors have assigned snakes from this region to M. macrorhyncha (e.g., Geniez 
2015). 
Myriopholis macrorhyncha (Jan, 1860:pl. V, fig. 12) 
Leptotyphlopid records from Ghat, Fezzan (Scortecci 1934b, 1937, 1939; Kramer and Snur- 
renberger 1963) were formerly attributed to this species, although Broadley et al. (2014) recently 
described these specimens as a new, endemic form, M. lanzai. Myriopholis macrorhyncha has been 
reported from scattered records in northeastern Africa from the Nile Delta and southern Sinai south 
to northern Tanzania and in Asia from Israel and southeastern Turkey east to Iran, Pakistan, and 
doubtfully in Rajasthan, India (Sindaco et al. 2013). Although other West African records are some¬ 
times attributed to this species (e.g., Werner 2016), records from Senegal are doubtful and those 
from other countries in northwestern Africa have chiefly been assigned to M. algeriensis (Trape 
2002). Specimens form the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt (Baha El Din 2006a) have 
been referred to M. macrorhyncha (Geniez 2015), but Broadley et al. (2014) considered these to be 
M. cairi. 
Pythonidae 
Python sebae (Gmelin, 1789:1118) 
Angel and Lhote (1938) cited an earlier mention by Largeau (1881) of a “enorme python” (pre¬ 
sumably P sebae, the only large python occurring in North Africa) he had seen in January 1875, 
12 km east of Rhadames (Ghadames) in the “Ouest du Sahara tripolitain.” There are, however, no 
vouchered records from Libya and the nearest confirmed modem occurrences of pythons are south 
of the Sahara. However, there are historical records of what have been interpreted by some as large 
Python in North Africa, most noteworthy being that of a giant snake at the River Bagradas (the 
modem Medjerda River in Tunisia) reported in 256 B.C. (Stothers 2004). If Largeau actually wit¬ 
nessed a python in 1875 if would certainly be the only modem record from north of the Sahara. As 
there are no other candidate species that might be interpreted as “enormous,” the only other option 
is that he was mistaken as to the site of his own observation. 
Colubridae 
Spalerosophis dolichospilus (Werner, 1923:166) 
Sochurek (1979) reported this species (as S. dolichospila ), without specific locality, from 
northwest Tripolitania. Confirmed localities extend from southern Morocco to northern Tunisia. 
The occurrence of S. dolichospilus in Tripolitania is possible but unconfirmed. 
