BREVIORA Miasemim of Coimparsitive Zoology Cambridge, Mass. 24 November, 1967 Number 276 THE GENERIC RELATIONSHIPS OF THE AFRICAN SCINCID GENUS EUMECIA Allen E. Greer In 1870 Bocage described a new skink (anchietae) from Africa that was peculiar in having an elongate body form, small ap-pendages with a reduced number of digits (2 fingers and 3 toes), a pair of supranasals meeting behind the rostral and a spectacle in the movable lower eyelid. Bocage placed the new species in a distinct genus which he named Eumecia, apparently to emphasize a similarity which he believed to exist with Eumeces. The three subsequent revisionary studies on scincid genera rightly recognized the closer afiinity of Eumecia with what have come to be called the lygosomine skinks rather than with Eumeces or its subfamily.^ Boulenger (1887) placed anchietae in the Riopa section of the genus Lygosoma, and in 1897 described a species (johnstoni) from Nyasaland that was distinguishable from anchietae primarily on the basis of a further reduction in the number of digits (1 finger and 2 toes in johnstoni; 2 fingers and 3 toes in anchietae) . Like anchietae, johnstoni was placed in the section Riopa of the genus Lygosoma. Smith (1937) revived Bocage's name Eumecia for a subgenus of the genus Riopa and included in it only anchietae and johnstoni. Mittleman (1952) agreed with Smith's conception of the taxon Eumecia but gave it full generic rank in his classification. Loveridge (1953 and 1957) placed both anchietae and johnstoni in the genus Riopa without recognizing subgenera, thus adopting ^ The subfamily Lygosominae is characterized by a single frontal bone, and palatine bones which meet along the midline of the palate to form a secondary palate. Eumeces is considered to be a scincine, a subfamily characterized, in part, by a divided frontal bone, and palatines which do not meet along the ventral midline of the palate (Greer, MS).
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