General Part

Abstract

As far as I am aware, the first author dealing with Surinam reptiles was Keye (1659), who gives a description of some turtles; this account, without any changes also appears in his 1667 book. The next author writing about reptiles was Warren (1667, 1669). He mentions turtles and tortoises, snakes, crocodiles, toads and frogs, but omits the lizards. The Dutch version of this book (Warren, 1669) served as a source for several later publications. Another author (Anonymus, 1676) copied Keye’S description of the turtles with slight alterations. Van Berkel’s (1695) book consisted of two parts, the first being a description of a journey to the Berbice River, the second being a description of a journey to Surinam. In the first part he mentions tortoises, crocodiles, snakes, lizards, iguanas and toads, in the second part only turtles and tortoises, crocodiles, snakes, toads and frogs. The second part of this book (‘Reis na Suriname’) has been copied almost literally from Warren (Dutch version 1669), only some slight alterations having been made. The first author to provide not only descriptions but also good illustrations of Surinam lizards is Merian (1705a, b) who figured Tupinambis nigropunctatus Spix (‘Sauvegard’) and Cnemidophorus l. lemniscatus (Linnaeus) (‘blauwe Hagedis’). Moreover, she figured and described two snakes and two frogs; all of them can be identified. Herlein (1718) added two other lizards, namely I. i. iguana (Linnaeus) (‘Leguanen’) and A. a. ameiva (Linnaeus) (‘Hagedissen’).