,.

S.A. NATURE FOUNDATION REPRESENTING THE WORLD WILDLIFE FUND (W W F ) PO Box 456 Stell~nbosch 7600 Te( (02231) 7-289213

• H.A.A. ISS:'\ 0257-7054 NEWSLETTER 9 Get face to facewith the African wlld.

A remarkable book Presented by the of wildlife photographs SA Nature Foundation, by Peter Johnson FHP FRPS. representing the Text by World Wildlife Fund Creina Bond. in Southern Africa. I For the enjoyment of nature lovers and photographic enthusiasts, techniques employed. the internationally acclaimed Sappi All proceeds from the sale of this book Collection of 100 superb full-colour I will go to the SA Nature Foundation, photographs by South Africa's The Sappi Collection -African Wildlife representing the World Wildlife Fund in foremost wildlife photographer now I Photographs by Peter Johnson FIIP FRPS Southern Africa, for the conservation of comes to you in a book you will be I To: SANATUREFOONDATION our wonderland of indigenous trees, proud to possess - exquisitely produced POBOX456 flowers and wildlife. APRIL STELLENBOSCH7600 1987 in horizontal format, 297 mm x 210 mm. I Share in the preservation of our wildlife An exhibition of the Sappi Colle<;:tion I I enclose my cheque/postal order for the sum of -9rder your copy of The Sappi Collection toured South Africa where the sensitive eye I R ...... in payment for: today. and technical expertise of Peter Johnson ...... Copies @ R2 J,95 per copy Herpetological A1111ociation of Africa gave half a million viewers a rare insight I into our unparalleled wildlife heritage. Name: ...... The book also contains a detailed I Address: ...... discussion by Peter Johnson of every I photograph in the Collection, giving technical details, artistic objectives and I ------• Postal Code: ...... Tel: .... . 2 1

HERPETOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION H.A.A. COMMITTEE It is with some sadness in my heart OF AFRICA EDITORIAL that I give you a 11 the prospects for 1987/1988 since I will not be Founded 1965 1. Chairman & Newsletter Editor: On t he first day of the new year one pa rt of the "organizers" any more. Mr J.H. van Wyk usually look back at the silhouette This also means that the Newsletter rrhe H.A.A. is dedicated to the study and National Museum of the past year. With your eyes in your hand is the last posted by conservation of African and amphibians. Bloemfontein I fixed on the distant horizon my mind me to your address. I have decided Membership is open to anyone with an interest in the 9300 te 11 s me ab'Out a 1 l my achievements to step down as Chairman and African herpetofauna. Members receive the Journal T but my conscience wispers that I Newsletter Editor of the HAA. It of the Herpero/ogica/ Association of Africa (two 2. Hon. Secretary/Treasurer: could have done much more. It is must sound like some sort of issues ;•er year) and the H.A.A. Newsleuer (three Mr R.M. Douglas then usually in this atrrosphere that scandel ! Unfortunately my issues per year). National Museum I set my goa 1 s for the year ahead. postgraduate research commitments Bloemfontein Needless to say at the end of the 1 imits my time, available to serve Subscription rates 1986 9300 year I usually realize that my new the HAA fully. This inevitably could year resolutions were far to eventualy lead to dissatisfaction African members - R9,00 3. Journal Editor: ambitious. from your side and frustration from ~embers from other continents - US $ 10.00 (by Dr W.R . Branch my side especially when someone out mternatonal money order). Going by the activities of the HAA Port Elizabe,:h Museum there in the ranks of the membership 1986 Humewood dur ing I am convinced however, could devote much more time to the For information about H.A.A. membership, write to that the Association wi 11 achieve HAA. Mr R. Douglas al 1 i ts goals for 1987. Indeed, the 4. Mr N. Jacobsen National Museum HAA hav e an interesting year ahead. I would, therefore, like to make use P.O. Box 266 Nacure Conservai:ion Division The HAA Symposium to be held at of this opportunity in thanking Bloemfontein 9300 Priva,:e Bag X209 Stel lenbosch is rapidly turning into everyone for the support l received South Africa Pretoria a ma_ ' r e v em1t. Hope f u 1 1 y t h i s during the past two years. I have no 0001 me e t i n ,, wi 1 1 .s t i mu 1 a t e t h e doubts in my mind when l say that herpet ') gy minded p€opl e to the HAA is very close to the summit, 5 . Mr J. Marais commun icate more freely and to do so in being a well organized active and Crocodile Farm in Sun City even more resularly in future. At involved association. It is just a P.O. Box 234 the same ve nL2 the HAA wil 1 hand the Sun City matter of commitment and resource Geometric Tortoise Fund to the utilization. Bophu,:hacswana Natu r e Foundation of Southern Africa. Certainly a milestone in the I wish the HAA and its new 6. Dr H. Berger-Dell'mour histor y of the HAA! This year wi 11 management a successful and State Museum also bring another General Meeting prosperous future ahead. Windhoek (Stellenbosch symposium venue), also S.W.A./Namibia a rather uncomrron event in the past. ' J.H. Van Wyk The committee reports should give CHAIRMAN &NEWSLETTER EDITOR 7. Natal Branch the members insight into the Mr John Vorsi:er activities of the first HAA ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 4 Jagger Road committee. A new committee wi 11 be Endangered Moni:clair formed and hopefully keep the HAA on poster available Durban the road to the summit. Maybe they 4001 will discover a few new short cuts! An updated "Endangered and Together with al 1 this, the Vulnerahle Species of South- Newsletter should become a more ern Africa·· poster has been NEWSLETTER EDITORIAL STAFF regular feature especially with a produced hy the Endangered new Editor, The HAA Journal may just Wildlife Trust. receive more higl,level scientific The poster features 13 spe- J.H. van Wyk (Editor) cies - five mammals, seven R. Douglas articles to become a regular feature as wel 1. It just seems logical that birds and one - which i T. Saaiman arc the focus of trust projects. the new committee with new Monies from the sale of post• Department of Herpetology initiatives and a fresh spirit wil 1 ers will go to conservation of National Museum have many more surprises for each endangered, vulnerahle and PO Box 266 HAA member. rare species. To order, send Bloemfontein, 9300 RJ,36 (includes GST) to the Endangered Wildlife Trust, Private Bag x 11, Parkview Tel. 051-79609 2122. Phone (01 I) 486-1102. 4 3

INSTITUTIONAL NEWS 4. Other news: A Suggested Coding Sys tern for If a genus; gets split up or if two Southern African Reptilian and genera are joined, the relevant code The Department suffered a Amphibian Taxa numbers should still represent this The National Museums and Monuments grievous loss with the death from situation. cancer of Mrs Barbara L. in a time of increasing Bulawayo, ZIMBABWE Bennefield on 28th May 1986. She computerisation, where museum Based on the fact that we possess was a very versatile and capable collection data are being stored on ten fingers (apart from the few Technical Officer and was l electronic databases, and vast lucky people that were born with 12 Dr. D.G. Broadley reports actively engaged in research on computer-aided 1 i terature search and the few unlucky but highly tortoises. programs have been developed , an respected ones who had themselves 1. Current research projects: effective and flexible coding system bitten by a puffadder), which ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• is essential. consequently resulted in us using a 2. a. Geographical variation in decimal calculating system, I Gerrhosaurus major (Saur ia: This article wants to induce the propose to introduce a four(five)- Cordylidae). D.G. Broadley necessary brain-storm in all digit decimal code system where the competent cereoral systems of our 1000 value represents the family, b. Caudal autotomy in the genus herpetological community, so that we the 100 the genus, the 10 the Natriciteres (Serpentes: end up with a useful concept. species and the last (1) tne COTuor1daef.-TI:t. Broad 1 ey THE ADVENTURES OF SPOT subspecies. We should try to I earn from the c. A cneck-1 i st of the repti 1 es shortcomings of the bird system and Any "o" would stand for "no more of Tanzania. D.G. Broadley & construct ours ,rore flexible. detailed information available" (in K.M. Howell (University of Dar What are the requirements? ou r example, 4000 stands for es Salaam) in general) or, in the 1. Re.,, ·esentat ion of a Natural case of a monotypic species, it will d. Amphioia Lambesiaca Sys '. ?m'' automatically be the last digit. A (continued). J.C. Poynton & "1" as the last digit may stand fer D.G. Broad l ey Within an existing herpetological U1e nominate subspecies. database, we want to be able to e. Repti 1 ia Zambesiaca. D.G. searcn for a related group of Even though computer filing at the Broadley organisms together (e.g. all Lowe r Ve r t i b r a t e s e c t i o n o f t t1 e subspecies of a species or al 1 Windhoek Museum has not been done to f. A revision of the African col ubr id snakes from a certain area any reasonable extent, a great part species of Naja (Serpentes: etc. ). This means that we want to of the Lacertidae have been dealt t:: 1ap i dae). D-:-G. Broad 1ey. mirror the true relationships in our with, and the code numbers used may code system. serve as an example. ~- Recent puolicat1ons: NEW STATE MUSEUM ACRONYM 2. Codes for new taxa to fit into 1 ~d'.). that "Natura 1 System" Code Name GeographicDistribution: As from 12 November 1986 the State Serpentes - Mehelya capensis Museum uses the international acro- In case of a newly described 4000 Lacertidae unicolor (Unicolor Fi le Snake). genus/species/subspecies we want to 4100 Aparasaura B"erp-:-Biv:. -i o ( 2 J: b o nym SMWN for al I its collections. be able to assign to it a code 4110 Aparasaura anchietae Catalogue numbers of reptiles and number next to that of the nearest 4200 Merales '1%6a. related taxon. 4210 Merales ctenadactylus GeograpnicalDistrioution: amphibians will now consist of this 4220 Merales cuneirastris Amph il)l a ,Sa 11 entl a, Hypero l ii dae: four letter code plus the number. 3. System flexible for transfers 4230 Merales microphalidatus Hyperol ius pari

4434 Pediop1an1s undata gaerdisi all lguania closely together, using In order to obey the second We have generally accepted that 4435 Pedioplanis undata rubens one 1000-block for both charnaeleons commandment, we just have to leave names (from subspecies to families!) 4460 Pedioplanis laticeps and leguans, the next one for big enough gaps between our change constantly. We should 4480 Pedioplanis l ineo-ocel lata ssp. agamids. Monitors might be joined up cateories. lf I were to describe a probably also provide for a buffered 4481 Pedioplanis 1.-o. lineo- with the anguids, both having rather new species of U12 Pedioplanis coding system that handles changes ocellata few represent at i v e s in Afr i c a. But undata group from the Namib (which of numbers with the least damage. If 4482 Pedioplanis lineo-ocellata here we stop obeying our first law incidentally I am), I would be lucky somebody was to shift a species from pulchella which stipulates that natural to have the species code 4440 sti l l one genus to another, he would have 4483 Pedioplanis lineo-ocellata relationships should be represented open. For a new member of the to announce the new relevant code inocellata in our coding system. Merales cuneirostris group, there number in his same publication. 4500 Lacerta wou 1d sti 11 be 4240 avai 1 able. But 4600 Tropidosaura Of course, a 11 repti 1 es and not for two new species of that Curators would either have a choice 4700 Nucras amphibians together cannot be fitted group 4250 is al ready occupied. to ignore this change (as they have 4710 Nucras intertexta in a four-digit system anyway. For today with changes of names) or to Again, 5-digit system wi 11 be more update their files. This seems to 4732 Nucras taeniolata ornata practical resons, this does not seem generous. 4750 Nucras tessellata become increasingly easy with modern so terrible. Tortoises, crocodiles, databases. (Just make sure that you 4900 Ichnotropis frogs and snakes could be kept in Do we prefer stability over obeying 4910 Ichnotropis squamulosa buy the right sorfware with your separate files with a special our first commandment? computer and don't end up putting 4930 Ichnotropis capensis identification letter or digit 4950 lchnotropis grandiceps your data into an insufficient (which wi 11 in fact increase the For a coding system to comply with system as I am doing right now). code number to a five digit unit). the\ third and fourth commandment, we wil 1 probably have to accept changes You wi 11 realise from this 1 ist that As the herpetological species code But bearing in mind that our system of numbers anyway: system should be worked out by the l have only assigned codes to should be expandable and flexable, species and subspecies occurring in time our multi-authored annotated we might consider to use a five- If Peu1oplanis was to be further checklist goes to print (hopefully SWA / Namibia. Should we want to digit system right from the start. split u p into two genera (I incorporate a 11 Southern African in ear 1y 1988), I suggest that the The various 10 000 categories could sincerely hope it won't) there would HAA newsletter is now used as a species, it would be quite easy. then be generally used for different be no genus code avaiilable. forum for criticisism to the above classes (e.g. 10 00 - 30 000 for Nucras t. taeniolata would by suggestions and of presentation of Amphibia, 50000- 90000 for In these cases one might compromise own ideas. lf a 11 goes we 11, we definition become 4731, Nucras "Reptilia") or "subclasses" (50 000: and decide that 4410 - 4480 is used lalandii would have to be given a should come forward with a product Chelonia, 90000: Crocodyl ia) or for Pedioplanis laticeps that is that meets everybody's needs and number not within the tessellata orders (60 000 - 80 000: ) raised to generic level we cannot Pedioplanis provides for future electronic group (probably 4980), and suborders ( 60 OO O: Op h i d i a , leave it at 4460 without developments. burchel 1 i might be assigned the 70000- 80000: Sauria & obliterating the natural relation- number 4470 (if we think that is Amphisbaenia). ships. Pedioplanis Hartwig Berger-Dell 'mour shows affinities to State museum Windhoek laticeps) etc. When Heliobolus and Pedioplanis were P.O. Box 1203 If we rea 11 y knew what the natural sti 11 "Eremias", one might have WINDHOEK system was, we could create a coding grouped E. lugubris on one end of Tel.: (061) 293370 We cannot go one step further and system that complies with our "first the genus, because it had been include al 1 African species, because commandment", i.e. representation of treated as subgenus for some while, , ...... there are more than ten genera to relations between systematic but there are plenty of examples consider. If we wanted to do that, categories. (Is it theoretically where whole taxonomic systems 1111 ADVEN TURES or SPOT we would have to use 2000 numbers possible to express a systematic changed in a totally unexpected way. for Lacertidae. If we were to cater distribution in a string of Remember, Atractaspis even switched for all African taxa, a numbers?) families, which would mean a change fourth digit systen for the suborder of the first digit in our system. l acerti 1 ia might become too tight: In some cases this might seem presumably at least the Cordy l i dae 'ril extreme: should we rea 11 y assign a While anticipating some of the and the Gekkon idae would have to be Robert's bird number to the problems, I must say that the rigid SEE SPOT. SEE SPOT RUN. SEE SPOT SLITHER. given 2000 figures space as well. crocodiles? Here we would have to type of system 1 i ke it is used i n With the Anguids and lguanids (we compromise if for no other reason birds appeals less to me than the would not 1 ike to omit Madagascar) than that croc's are as yet sti 11 one where code numbers change. joining the club, we run out of housed in the" lower" vertebrates' (Incidentally, bird-numbers in space. A way out would be to keep sections of museums ... Southern Africa are not sage from being changed, too ••. )