Limaformosa

Limaformosa is a genus of snakes, commonly known as file snakes, in the family Lamprophiidae. The genus is endemic to Africa.

Limaformosa
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Family:	Lamprophiidae
Subfamily:	Lamprophiinae
Genus:	Limaformosa Broadley, Tolley, Conradie, Wishart, J.-F. Trape, Burger, Kusamba, Zassi-Boulou & Greenbaum, 2018

Limaformosa capensis

Etymology

The generic name, Limaformosa, is from Latin lima meaning "file" + formosa meaning "beautifully formed".^[1]

Species

There are six recognized species in the genus:^[1]

• Limaformosa capensis (A. Smith, 1847) – Cape file snake
• Limaformosa chanleri (Stejneger, 1893) – unicolor file snake
• Limaformosa crossi (Boulenger, 1895) – Crosse's file snake, West African file snake^[2]
• Limaformosa guirali (Mocquard, 1887) – Mocquard's file snake
• Limaformosa savorgnani (Mocquard, 1887) – Congo file snake
• Limaformosa vernayi (Bogert, 1940) – Angolan file snake

Nota bene: A binomial authority in parentheses indicates that the species was originally described in a genus other than Limaformosa.

References

1. Genus Limaformosa at The Reptile Database www.reptile-database.org.
2. Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiii + 296 pp. ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5. (West African File Snake Mehelya crossii, p. 62).

Further reading

• Boulenger GA (1893). Catalogue of the Snakes in the British Museum (Natural History). Volume I., Containing the Families ... Colubridæ Aglyphæ, part. London: Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History). (Taylor and Francis, printers). xiii + 448 pp. + Plates I-XXVIII. (Gonionotophis, new genus, p. 323).
• Branch, Bill (2004). Field Guide to Snakes and other Reptiles of Southern Africa. Sanibel Island, Florida: Ralph Curtis Books. 399 pp. ISBN 0-88359-042-5. (Genus Mehelya, p. 78).
• Broadley, Donald G.; Tolley, Krystal A.; Conradie, Werner; Wishart, Sarah; Trape, Jean-François; Burger, Marius; Kusamba, Chifundera; Zassi-Boulou, Ange-Ghislain; Greenbaum, Eli (2018). "A phylogeny and genus-level revision of the African file snakes Gonionotophis Boulenger (Squamata: Lamprophiidae)". African Journal of Herpetology 67 (1): 43–60. (Limaformosa, new genus).