Etymologies of African reptiles

Abstract

Africa is a mega-biodiverse continent with 38 currently recognised families, 263 genera, 1 893 species, and 246 subspecies of reptiles, corresponding to a total of 2 402 taxon names. Our definition of Africa also includes a few offshore islands such as Cape Verde, São Tomé, and Príncipe but not the Canary Islands and Madagascar. Herein we resolve the etymologies of these genus, species and subspecies names as described until the end of 2025. Etymologies will help students of African reptiles to understand the meaning of these names that often carry information about the biology or history of those taxa. The names of most genera (198 of 263) are derived from Greek words, whereas those of most species are either derived from Latin (688 out of 1 893) or from eponyms (673). We also found 465 toponyms (named after places) (16 genera, 387 species and 62 subspecies). Relatively few taxa (95) were named after other sources, such as local names (57) or mythological figures (4). Given that many authors did not explain their names, we also present 11 names with unclear etymologies, although we offer some speculations about their origins and present plausible hypotheses for them. Finally, we provide a list of 86 authors who coined more than 10 taxon names each. A complete species list with all etymologies and their authors are available in a supplementary table.