Kingdom Animalia Class Sauropsida Family Scincidae Rank Genus | Phylum Chordata Order Squamata Subfamily Lygosominae | |
Similar Trachylepis, Noronha skink, Mabuya, Eutropis, Chioninia | ||
Euprepis atlanticus ou pequeno lagarto
Euprepis is an obsolete genus of skinks in the subfamily Lygosominae. It was named by Wagler in 1830 and frequently used in subsequent years, often misspelled as Euprepes, a misspelling introduced by Wiegmann in 1834. It was then subsumed under the large skink genus Mabuya, until Mausfeld and others resurrected it for a group of mainly African skinks they split from Mabuya. The following year, Bauer argued that this assignment had been in error and that this group should be called Trachylepis instead. Euprepis itself is a junior synonym of Mabuya.
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Type species
The identity of the type species, the name-bearing type which determines the application of a generic name, of Euprepis has been in some recent dispute. In 1830, Wagler included several species in Euprepis: Lacerta punctata Linnaeus, 1758 (=Lygosoma punctatum), Scincus multifasciatus Kuhl, 1820, Scincus trilineatus Schneider, 1801, Scincus quinquetaeniatus Lichtenstein, 1823, Scincus agilis Raddi, 1823 (=Mabuya agilis), Lacerta fasciata Linnaeus, 1758, Lacerta quinquelineata Linnaeus, 1758, Scincus tristatus Daudin, 1802, and Scincus Sloanei Daudin, 1802, but he did not select a type species. Subsequently, Fitzinger selected "Eumeces mabouia" (=Mabuya mabouya) as the type species, but his designation is invalid because Wagler did not include this species in his original concept of the genus. In 1957, Loveridge selected Scincus agilis (=Mabuya agilis) as the type species from among the species Wagler had included as the type species, and in 1970 Peters and Donoso-Barros listed, without comment, Lacerta punctata Linnaeus (=Lygosoma punctatum) as the type species. When Mausfeld and others split Mabuya in 2002, they resurrected Euprepis for the group including African and Malagasy species and the Noronha skink and also listed Lacerta punctata as the type species, considering all previous type designations invalid. In 2003, Bauer argued that the earliest type species designation is valid, so the type species of Euprepis is Scincus agilis, a member of Mabuya as restricted by Mausfeld and others in 2002 (including only American species), making Euprepis a junior synonym of Mabuya. Bauer also argued that Lacerta punctata did not apply to a species of the African Mabuya group, as Mausfeld and others had assumed, but rather to the Asian species Lygosoma punctatum.
Species
Among the species previously included in Euprepis or Euprepes are the following: