Unmasking the Desert Phantom: Genetic Evidence Does Not Support the Validity of the Enigmatic Boehme's Horned Viper

The viperid genus Cerastes contains four desert-adapted species distributed throughout the Saharo-Arabian arid belt that are typically associated with loose sands. Cerastes boehmei is restricted to one locality in Tunisia and is known only from the holotype. Since its description, it has been speculated that this species, which exhibits distinctive horn-like supraocular scales, could be an aberrant specimen of another desert-adapted viper of the same genus, C. vipera. In this study, we present genetic data from the holotype specimen of C. boehmei for the first time. We used Sanger and Illumina sequencing and obtained sequences for three mitochondrial genes (12S, 16S, cytb) and three nuclear genes (MC1R, NT-3, VIM) and constructed two separate phylogenetic trees based on these data sets. Additionally, we generated a phylogenetic analysis based on the coding regions of mitogenomes of all the Cerastes species. The analyses of both the mitochondrial and the nuclear data clearly show that the C. boehmei holotype is nested within C. vipera. Based on our results, we formally synonymise Cerastes boehmei Wagner & Wilms, 2010 with Cerastes vipera (Linnaeus, 1758). This taxonomic revision is supported by robust genetic evidence and will help to resolve the long-lasting debate concerning the validity of the species.