Xerobates agassizii Cooper 1863

Xerobates agassizii Cooper, 1863

[= Gopherus agassizii (Cooper, 1863); fide, Stejneger, 1893:161; Auffenberg and Franz, 1978a:1]

Cooper, 1863, Proc. California Acad. Nat. Sci. 2:120.

Syntype: USNM 7888 (alcoholic juvenile, CL 92 mm), Soda or Solado Valley (see “Remarks”), California; collected by James G. Cooper, Mar 1861.

Type Locality: “Mountains of California, near Fort Mojave.”

Other Type Material: Two other syntypes were originally in the collection of the California State Geological Survey and later deposited in the California Academy of Sciences. Unfortunately both specimens were destroyed in the earthquake and consequent fire at the CAS in 1906 (In Litt., Michelle Koo to R. P. Reynolds, 29 Jun 2005). Even though it is not possible to verify now, catalog records indicate that CAS 7141 and CAS 7142 (In Litt., Michelle Koo to R. P. Reynolds, 29 Jun 2005) were the likely syntypes of Xerobates agassizi from the California State Geological Survey that were destroyed in 1906.

Etymology: The name agassizii is a patronym honoring Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, zoologist Louis Agassiz.

Remarks: The original parchment label attached to USNM 7888 lists the locality as Soda Valley, but the original catalog record has Solado Valley. Cochran (1961:236) included “Utah Basin, Mojave River” as part of the stated locality for USNM 7888. This information is not in the catalog record, and we have been unable to determine why she included it in the locality for this specimen.