Notes on Two Specimens of the Rare Snake Ficimia cana and the Description of a New Species of Ficimia from Texas

Abstract

THE species Ficimia cana, described by Cope' in 1860 from a specimen collected near Fort Buchanan, Arizona, by Dr. B. J. D. Irwin, has remained a great rarity in collections. Cope, in his Crocodilians, Lizards, and Snakes, records a second specimen taken by H. W. Henshaw in southern Arizona in 1873. Ruthven' reports a specimen found dead on the shore of Lake Walters at the White Sands, West of Alamogordo, New Mexico, in the summer of 1906. Boulenger' lists a specimen from El Paso, Texas,' but no date of collection is indicated. Van Denburgh' mentions still another specimen from Montezuma Canyon, Huachuca Mountains, Arizona. The following descriptions are based on two specimens which were collected in New Mexico in 1929 by John Suarez Wright and myself. Number 6617, Kansas University Museum of Birds and Mammals. Collected by Edward H. Taylor and John Suarez Wright, 10 miles north of Florida, Luna County, New Mexico, August 4, 1929, midnight with light. Adult male. Unlike the specimens mentioned by Cope, and shown in his figure,' there are two nasal scales separated from the first labial. The groove from the nostril to the suture of the second is merely the posterior part of a suture between the nasal and the front labial while the anterior part is fused with the first labial in Cope's specimen. In the characters of the internasal, the prefrontals and all the other head scales, the specimen is practically identical with Cope's figure. The dorsal bands on body and head are 39; on the tail 12, each usually continuous, but occasionally broken, always narrowed laterally; -on the sides narrow elongate broken spots occur between the bands. The belly is immaculate save for a few flecks of brown on the scales of the posterior part of the body and under tail. The posterior pair of chin shields is so small and separated so widely that one distinguishes them with difficulty. Ventrals 134, subcaudals 35. The anal is divided. Scale rows 19-17. The total length is 178 mm; the tail 48 mm. Number 6616, Kansas University Museum. This specimen was collected at the same time and place as the preceding. It is a female and not improbably the mate of the male listed above, as it was taken about fifty feet from the other specimen only a few minutes later. In squamation of the