An Enigmatic New Species of Blind Snake from Luzon Island, Northern Philippines, with a Synopsis of the Genus Acutotyphlops (Serpentes: Typhlopidae)

—We describe a strikingly distinct new species of Acutotyphlops from Kalinga Province of Luzon Island, Philippines. The new species is most closely related to other members of the genus Acutotyphlops from Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands and represents a new genus and species group record for the Philippines. A revised definition of Acutotyphlops is presented along with a synopsis of the genus. The discovery of this species, combined with consideration of its morphology and distribution, represents a curious new systematic and biogeographical problem in Southeast Asian and southwest Pacific scolecophidian snake systematics. The family Typhlopidae is the most speciose of the three scolecophidian families, containing some 265 of the 395 total species (VW, unpubl. data). Although the Leptotyphlopidae has two recognized genera (Leptotyphlops and Rhinoleptus) and the Anomalepididae has four (Anomalepis, Helminthophis, Liotyphlops, and Typhlophis), recent years have seen the fragmentation of the cosmopolitan blindsnake genus Typhlops into a number of genera: Acutotyphlops Wallach (1995), Austrotyphlops Wallach (2006), Cyclotyphlops Bosch and Ineich (1994), Grypotyphlops Peters (1881), Letheobia Cope (1869), Ramphotyphlops Fitzinger (1843), Rhinotyphlops Fitzinger (1843), and Xenotyphlops Wallach and Ineich (1996). Grypotyphlops and Letheobia were resurrected from synonymy by Wallach (2003) and Broadley and Wallach (2007), respectively. The Typhlopidae of the Philippines currently includes 14 species (Gaulke, 1996; McDiarmid et al., 1999): five species placed in Ramphotyphlops (braminus, cumingii, marxi, olivaceus, and suluensis) and nine species in Typhlops (canlaonensis, castanotus, collaris, hedraeus, hypogius, luzonensis, manilae, ruber, and ruficaudus). These species can be divided into four species groups: the R. braminus group (braminus), the R. multilineatus group (cumingii, marxi, olivaceus, and suluensis), the T. ater group (hedraeus, hypogius, and manilae), and the T. ruficaudus group (canlaonensis, castanotus, collaris, luzonensis, ruber, and ruficaudus). The latest reviews of Philippine taxa were provided by Wynn and Leviton (1993) and Wallach (1993a, 2003). The Typhlopidae of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands includes 18 species (O’Shea, 1996; Wallach, 1996, 1997, 2003; Shea and Wallach, 2000): four species placed in Acutotyphlops (infralabialis, kunuaensis, solomonis, and subocularis), nine species in Ramphotyphlops (angusticeps, becki, braminus, depressus, erycinus, leucoproctus, mansuetus, multilineatus, and polygrammicus), and six species in Typhlops (ater, depressiceps, inornatus, mcdowelli, and fredparkeri). These species can be divided into six species groups: the A. subocularis group (infralabialis, kunuaensis, solomonis, and subocularis), the R. braminus group (braminus), the R. flaviventer group (becki, depressus, leucoproctus, and mansuetus), the R. multilineatus group (angusticeps, multilineatus), the R. polygrammicus group (erycinus and polygrammicus), and the T. ater group (ater, depressiceps, inornatus, mcdowelli, and fredparkeri). Ramphotyphlops, Acutotyphlops, and the recently separated Austrotyphlops are differentiated from all other Scolecophidia by the presence of unique specializations of the male reproductive system: a pair of solid eversible hemipenes Corresponding Author. 7 Present address: Flat A09-4, Satria Court, BDC, Jalan Stutong, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia; E-mail: [email protected] Journal of Herpetology, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 690–702, 2007 Copyright 2007 Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles