TY - JOUR AU - Faraone, Francesco P. AU - Russotto, Salvatore AU - Barra, Salvatore A. AU - Chiara, Roberto AU - Giacalone, Gabriele AU - Lo Valvo, Mario PY - 2019/12/27 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Morphological variation of the newly confirmed population of the Javelin sand boa, Eryx jaculus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Serpentes, Erycidae) in Sicily, Italy JF - Acta Herpetologica JA - Acta Herpetol. VL - 14 IS - 2 SE - Short Note DO - 10.13128/a_h-7752 UR - https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/ah/article/view/7752 SP - 135-139 AB - <p>The presence of the Javelin sand boa in Sicily has recently been confirmed. Here the morphological characters and sexual dimorphism of the Sicilian population of <em>Eryx jaculus </em>are presented. Seven meristic and six metric characters in 96 specimens from Sicily were examined. The results show that tail length, snout-vent length, the distance between nostrils and the number of ventral and subcaudal scales are different between sexes. The characters found in the Sicilian population of the Javelin sand boa resemble those of the African population (ssp. <em>jaculus</em>) rather than the Eurasian population (ssp. <em>turcicus</em>), but biomolecular studies are necessary to understand its taxonomic identity.</p> ER -