Rueppel’s Snake-eyed skink, Ablepharus rueppellii (Gray, 1839) (Reptilia: Squamata: Scincidae): Distribution extension and geographic range in Israel

: We report a new locality for Rueppel’s Snake-eyed skink ( Ablepharus rueppellii ) in Southern Israel – near Shivta Junction. This record extends the known distribution of this species in Israel by ~25km. We examined all known localities of this species in Israel and the adjacent Sinai Peninsula (Egypt), and discuss some discrepancies between them and currently published range maps, including the one produced by the IUCN.

We returned to the same place the next morning, where at 07:05 h we caught an individual A. rueppellii ( Figure 2). The individual was found inside a discarded plastic cup, in the shade. It was captured, and measured (with digital Mitutoyo calipers and 20 g Pesola scales) in the field. Its SVL was 36.75 mm, its tail 50.38 mm, and it weighed 0.7 g. These measurements are well within the range of other Israeli specimens of A. rueppellii (Meiri 2010, TAUM data). Both the cloacal temperature of the specimen, 25.6 o C, and the air temperature at the time of capture (19 o C), were the lowest of nine measurements we took of A. rueppellii during March-June 2012, despite all the other specimens (29.0-34.8 o C body temperature, 22.4-28 o C air temperature) having been measured further north (including specimens collected at similar times of the day). All temperature measurements were taken using a Newtron TM-5005 portable digital thermometer. The specimen was collected under an Israeli Nature and Parks Authority (NPA) collection permit #2012/38489, and is now preserved in the TAUM collections (#R16130). The only other reptiles we found at the stream were two Chalcides ocellatus (Forskal 1775) (Scincidae) individuals that were found under rocks. Their body temperatures (20.6 and 21.3 o C, both at 07:10 h) were considerably lower than that of the Ablepharus.

The biogeography of Rueppel's Snake-eyed skink in Israel and NE Sinai
To verify that the Shivta Junction locality indeed represents a range extension we have digitized A. rueppellii range maps from Werner et al. (2006), and Bar and Haimovitch (2012). To these we added the localities of 812 A. rueppellii individuals from four sources: 1. the NPA's animal observation dataset (85 observations, Eliezer Frankenberg, pers. comm. to SM); 2. The personal observation dataset of BS (428 observed individuals); 3. the National Natural History Collections, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ, 170 specimens); 4. TAUM specimens (129 specimens). The maps and specimens are shown in Figure 3. A full list of the coordinates for the 476 localities in the dataset is given in Appendix 1. may occur in the Gaza strip, for instance in association with leaf litter of Ficus sycamora trees, as has been observed in Nizzanim sands, southern Israeli coastal plain. The scarcity of specimens from the west bank, however, likely represents false absences, given the rarity of collecting and field surveys in the areas of the Palestinian Authority.
Several specimens, however, come from areas that do not appear on either the IUCN (Werner et al. 2006) or the recent Bar and Haimovitch (2012) map. The IUCN range excludes Lebanon and Syria, and so does Uetz (2012). Werner et al. (2006) however, acknowledge that "There is an unconfirmed record from southern Lebanon (not mapped here). There are currently no records from Syria, although it is possible that the species is present in this country". Hraoui-Bloquet et al. (2002) identify Lebanese specimens of snake-eyed skinks as A. budaki, but acknowledges that old records (published before the resurrection of A. rueppellii by Schmidtler, 1997) cannot be confidently ascribed to either species. Three TAUM specimens (#13433, 14226 and 14227) are from Sidon, Lebanon, all taken during the 1982-1984 Lebanon war. Some of the authors view such specimens as the only positive outcome of this conflict. Given that it is widely distributed along the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, and that it occurs in Syria and the Northern Golan Heights (Figure 3), and because the S. Lebanese and SW Syrian habitats likely greatly resemble N. Israeli ones, we think it is extremely likely that A. rueppellii inhabits both countries. Further specimens (from all three sources) are reported from the lower Jordan Valley and from along the western shores of the Dead Sea, as far south as the Ein Gedi area. In view of the fact that several specimens are reported, from various sources, and because the region has many (small) springs and oases, usually on rocky soils, we think they represent genuine range extensions. In support of this, Disi et al. (2001) and Al-Quran (2009) report the species from adjacent areas in western and southern Jordan, respectively.
In the southern parts of its Israeli distribution, many sightings and specimens attest that A. rueppellii is found both further east (e.g., near Dimona, TAUM 13009) and further south than current maps (Werner et al. 2006;Bar and Haimovitch 2012) suggest. Again we view these data as reliable. Finally, the IUCN, as well as Baha El-Din (2006) report that A. rueppellii occurs in eastern Sinai. We suspect, however, that the exact location depicted in the species evaluation by the IUCN (Werner et al. 2006) should be moved a few kilometers to the south. As far as These maps provide some interesting insights: first, the Shivta Junction individual indeed represents a new, hitherto unknown locality extension. The specimen was found ~25 km from the nearest known collection localities (in the East). While the locality is new, the habitat is similar to the one occupied by A. rueppellii in the Negev Mountains to the south (UR and SM, pers. obs.) -i.e., it was found in a relatively vegetated stream bed with limestone, sandy regosols and arid brown soils, rather than on sand. That said, the new locality is approximately 600 meters lower in elevation (~315m a.s.l.) than in the Negev Mountains, and thus may represent one of the warmest areas in the distribution of this species.
The global expert-drawn maps and specimen localities for the species do not always overlap. For example, the Israeli coastal plain is not included in the IUCN map but the species is represented from this locality in both HUJ collections and observations by BS. We therefore also predict, with Bar and Haimovitch (2012) that the species  we know, the only reliable data for the presence of the species in NW Sinai are in the form of a single specimen (HUJ 14337), collected in Qadesh Barnea (roughly 30°38' N, 34°26' E, Figure 3b) on October 1980. We verified the collection details with the collector, Henk Mienis (pers. comm. to SM) and view the locality record we present here as genuine.
In sum, Ablepharus rueppellii is widely distributed in Mediterranean areas of Israel, Syria and, most likely, Lebanon, and also penetrates the Israeli, Palestinian,