MARQUES ET AL.: AMPHIBIANS AND TERRESTRIAL REPTILES OF ANGOLA 
41 
presents an important update. In their gazetteer of terrestrial vertebrate colleeting loealities in 
Angola Crawford-Cabral and Mesquitela (1989) provided the first multi-taxa attempt to summa¬ 
rize the history of biodiversity diseovery and distribution of Angolan terrestrial vertebrates. They 
mapped 54 “loei” [= localities transformed into quarter degree squares] for amphibian and/or 
reptile type material. However, they did not provide cumulative maps of all Angolan records of 
amphibians and reptiles In contrast, we present 663 unique localities associated with herpetofaunal 
records in the country, plotted as point localities. 
Seventeen amphibian taxa, representing approximately 15% of the total amphibian diversity 
in Angola, are endemic to Angola - Poyntonophrynus grandisonae (family Bufonidae); Hyperolius 
bicolor, Hyperolius chelaensis, Hyperolius cinereus, Hyperolius fuscigula, Hyperolius gularis, 
Hyperolius maestus, Hyperolius protchei, Hyperolius raymondi, Hyperolius rhizophilus and 
Hyperolius vilhenai (family Hyperoliidae); Arthroleptis carquejai, Leptopelis angolensis, 
Leptopelis jordani, and Leptopelis marginatus (family Arthroleptidae); Hildebrandtia ornatissima 
(family Ptychadenidae); Phrynobatrachus brevipalmatus (family Phrynobatrachidae); and 
Amnirana parkeriana (family Ranidae). 
Reptile endemicity is proportionally somewhat lower than amphibian endemicity, with 36 taxa 
endemic for the country, representing approximately 12% of total diversity. No crocodilians nor 
chelonians are exclusive to Angola. A total of 27 lizards (species and subspecies) have so far only 
been found in Angola. These are divided between the families Scincidae (Eumecia anchietae 
major, Sepsina copei, Trachylepis monardi, Typhlacontias punctatissimus bogerti, Typhlacontias 
rudebecki), Gekkonidae (Afrogecko ansorgii, Hemidactylus bayonii, Hemidactylus benguellensis, 
Kolekanos plumicaudus, Pachydactylus angolensis, Rhoptropus benguellensis, Rhoptropus 
montanus, Rhoptropus taeniostictus), Amphisbaenidae (Monopeltis luandae, Monopeltis 
perplexus, Monopeltis welwitschii), Lacertidae (Ichnotropis capensis overlaeti, Ichnotropis 
microlepidota, Nucras scalaris, Pedioplanis haackei, Pedioplanis huntleyi), Gerrhosauridae 
(Gerrhosaurus multilineatus), Agamidae (Agama mucosoensis), and Cordylidae {Cordylus 
angolensis, Cordylus namakuiyus). The monotypic gekkonid genus Kolekanos, from southern 
Angola (Namibe Province) is endemic to Angola. The number of known endemic snakes is one 
quarter that of lizards, with only six species and one subspecies endemic to the country. These are 
distributed across the families Typhlopidae (Afrotyphlops anomalus), Leptotyphlopidae (Namib- 
iana rostrata), Viperidae {Bitis heraldica), and Lamprophiidae (Boaedon angolensis, Boaedon 
variegatum, Psammophis ansorgii and Psammophylax rhombeatus ocellatus). 
Endemic species occur mainly in five different areas (Fig. 29) - in the coastal lowlands of the 
southwestern Angola (Namibie and Benguela provinces), in the escarpment highlands (Kwanza 
Norte, Kwanza Sul, Huambo, Benguela and Huila provinces), in the Angolan plateau (Lunda Sul, 
Bie, Huambo and Huila provinces), in the Southern Congolian Savannah mosaic lowlands of 
Lunda Norte, and finally across the Kwanza River Basin, mainly from Malanje to Luanda. 
As noted above, Angola lies at the crossroads of different biogeographic regions. According to 
Linder et al. (2012) the country extends from the Congolian region in the north to the Zambezian 
region in the center and southeast, and the Southern African region in the southwest. This broad 
biogeographic division is particularly interesting, and a similar scheme has been accepted, though 
with some degree of personal interpretation, by many authors who focused on the biogeography of 
the Angola herpetofauna. Bocage (1895a) was the first to propose two main biogeographic zones 
in Angola — a northern region and a southern region — with the Kwanza River being the main 
division between them. Within these two main regions, Bocage (1895a) proposed a subsequent 
division — the coastal zone, the intermediate zone, and finally the high plateau zone (Table 4). 
Despite the limited data (in terms of diversity and distribution of the Angolan herpetofauna, as well 
