The present paper reviews A. pretrei on the basis of available specimens, including the types of three of the four named forms. It shows that the names subocularis and brachyura belong properly in the synonymy of pretrei. It speculates on the status of A. leucocephala, which represents either a southern race or a distinct species, but leaves the form species inquirenda. INTRODUCTION Amphisbaena pretrei Dumeril and Bibron, 1839, was described on the basis of two specimens collected by M. Poyer in Bresil. It was characterized by the high number of body annuli and precloacal pores and by the presence of a small preocular segment (between supralabial and prefrontal). Guichenot's report (1855) on the Castelnau collection first listed Bahia as a definite locality for this form. Three other forms must be referred to here. A. subocularis and A. leucocephala were both described by Peters (1878) based upon specimens from Pernambuco and Bahia respectively. A. brachyura was described by Amaral (1932) based on a specimen with an apparently autotomized tail from Maceio, Alagoas. He relied primarily upon the shortness of the tail and the shape of the occipital segments and compared the form only with A. mertensi Strauch. Amaral later (1937) placed both A. subocularis and A. leucocephala into the synonymy of A. pretrei. Few other recent references to these names exist except in collection reports and checklists, probably due to the scarcity of material in collections; diligent search disclosed only 40 specimens of this grouping, of which 12 lack all data, and ten others are assigned to states only. Distributional records are shown in Figure 1. I am grateful to the following curators of institutions (identified by abbreviations in parentheses) for loan of specimens in their care: Alice G. C. Grandison, British Museum (Natural History) (BM); Alan Leviton, California Academy of Sciences (CAS); Hymen Marx and Robert F. Inger, Chicago Natural History Museum (CNHM); Paulo E. Vanzolini and A. Stanley Rand of the Departmento de Zoologia, Sao Paulo (DZ); Lucia Rossi, Istituto e Museo di Zoologia della Universita di Torino (IMZUT); F. W. Braestrup, Universitetets Zoologiske Museum, Copenhagen (KM); Ernest E. Williams, Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ); Jean Guibe, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris (MHNP); Antenor L. de Carvalho, Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (MN); L. 0. Capocaccia, Museo Civico di Storia Naturale Giacomo Doria, Genoa (MSNG); Doris M. Cochran, United States National Museum 1 Notes on Amphisbaenids. 18.