Lygosoma megalops Annandale, 1906 (Squamata, Scincidae): a junior synonym of Lankascincus fallax (Peters, 1860)

Annandale (1906) described Lygosoma megalops, now in the genus Lankascincus, based on two syntypes collected from Kitulgala and Puttalam in Sri Lanka. These syntypes have not been recognized since the original description. In 2019, Batuwita designated a neotype, WHT 6545, for Ly. megalops from Kitulgala. The number WHT ‘6545’ does not exist in the registers of either WHT or NMSL. The neotype designation also fails to conform to several Articles of the Code: 75.3.1, 75.3.3, 75.3.5 and 75.3.7. Given that it does not appear to exist, it makes the designation of ‘WHT 6545’ as the neotype of Ly. megalops void ab initio. Further, based on the description provided in Batuwita (2019), it is clear that the species he conceived as Ly. megalops was in fact morphologically similar to several other Lankascincus species. We show that, as characterized by Annandale (1906), Ly. megalops cannot be assigned to any scincid species in Sri Lanka. The locality data Annandale disclosed for Ly. megalops—Puttalam and Kitulagala—make it almost certain that the two syntypes belonged to different species or to La. fallax. Therefore, unless resolved, the nomen La. megalops will continue to threaten the nomenclatural stability in the genus Lankascincus, as well as in the genus Eutropis. In order to address this problem, we invalidate the neotype designated by Batuwita (2019) and show that Ly. megalops is a synonym of La. fallax.