GBIF Taxonomic Backbone & Wikipedia Registry Profile
Description of the holotype. General morphology. A male specimen that weighed 31.4 gram, with SVL 425 mm and incomplete tail (TaL 162 mm). Head distinct from the neck; the body is quite round, not laterally compressed. Head length from tip of the snout to the neck (HL 1) 21.4 mm; head moderately elongate (5.0 % of SVL); HL 2 from tip of the snout to posterior edges of the parietal shields 13.4 mm. Snout length (rostral tip to posterior edges of prefrontals) 4.1 mm, 1.8 times as long as horizontal diameter of the eye (of 2.3 mm); nares distinctly directed dorsolaterally on the snout, round, quite large (diameter 2.3 mm), 1.5 times as large as the distance between its lower margin and the margin of the lip (1.5 mm). Eye medium-sized with a round pupil. Tail broken, remaining proximal part cylindrical. Base of tail with distinct keels. Size. SVL: 425 mm; TaL: not available; HL 1: 21.4 mm; R: not available. Dentition. Not available. Hemipenes. The everted hemipenes are pinkish-white, short, single, not forked and bulbous; the organ is overall densely covered with tiny, slightly curved spines; spines at the tip of the organ are larger. Body scalation. DSR: 19 - 19 - 17 scales, scales rhombohedral, not notched at their distal end, with moderately strong keels at midbody, except for the smooth, slightly enlarged scales of the 1 st DSR; vertebral scales not enlarged; scales around the base of the tail distinctly keeled, not strongly keeled; the reduction from 19 to 17 dorsal scale rows takes place between the 95 th and 98 th ventral plate; at level V 96 on the right side, the 3 rd scale row fuses with 4 th row fuse to become row 3; and at level V 97 on the left side scale row 3 and 4 fuse to become row 3; 168 ventral plates + 2 preventrals; SC not available (tail truncated), all paired; cloacal plate divided. Head scalation. Arrangement of upper head scales complete, including 2 internasals, 2 prefrontals, 2 supraoculars, 1 frontal, and two parietals. Rostral wider than high, not visible from above; nasals subrectangular, distinctly elongate, divided above and below the quite large, central naris; internasals subtriangular, in broad contact with each other, wider than long, narrowing anteriorly; 2 prefrontals, subrectangular, much larger than internasals; frontal hardly longer than wide, longer than prefrontal, the anterior edge perpendicular to the longitudinal axis. Parietals large, suture between them barely longer than the frontal; 2 / 2 preoculars; 2 / 2 postoculars, upper one much larger than lower one; left loreal trapezoid, a little longer than high; right loreal rectangular, nearly twice as long as high; 9 / 9 supralabials, 5 th and 6 th in contact with eye, 7 th and 8 th largest; 5 / 5 temporals in formula 1 + 2 + 2, anterior temporal elongate, disk-shaped / flattened hexagonal, upper temporal of second row much larger than lower one (both sides); infralabials much damaged posteriorly on both sides, 1 st to 5 th IL in contact with anterior shin shields; posterior shin shields longer than anterior ones. Coloration of freshly killed holotype and its dried skin. Head and neck. The upper side of the head and neck is dark brown with some greyish vermiculation. Supralabials are cream or pale ochre-brown with their edges dark grey and surroundings peppered with grey. The eye is round, quite large, with a round, black pupil with a yellow halo; the iris is pale brown mottled and peppered with black. An oblique, bicolored postocular streak (upper side pale yellowish-brown or yellow-ochre, lower side dark brown) traverses the anterior temporal shield and the 8 th and 9 th supralabials, dividing these shields in a pale- and dark-colored section. At the corner of the upper jaw the dark part of the streak fuses with the dark brown ground color of the neck, the pale ochre part meanders in the characteristic pattern of a curved bar with knobs towards the midline of the neck and fuses with the first, most anterior pale blotch of the dorsolateral row of blotches. Dorsal side of the body and tail. The dorsum is dark brown in the central nine scale rows, gradually a little lighter greyish-brown in the lateral rows, with the enlarged outermost row distinctly paler, its centre ochre-brown, edged by grey. A dorsolateral series of roundish pale ochre- or orange-brown blotches the size of one scale (plus parts of the surrounding scales) stretches from the neck to the tail on row 6, each spot separated from the next one by one brown scale (see Figs. 3, 5 A). These dorsolateral blotches are aligned on a diffuse stripe, slightly paler than the dark brown ground color; the blotches are all of similar size and distinct until the very posterior end of the body where they become smaller and indistinct and fade away on the tail; another series of lateral dark brown blotches on dorsal row 4 below each ochre- or orange-brown spot. About 80 blotches are distinct in each row. The upper side of the tail is uniformly dark brown. Lower side of head and neck, body and tail. Infralabials and chin shields are white to cream. The venter immaculate pinkish-white / cream except for the corners of the ventral plates which are salmon, laterally edged or peppered with grey; there is a cloudy grey spot near the corner. Anteriorly these spots are rather vague, cloudy-amoeboid, posteriorly they are slightly larger, denser, darker and more distinct. The lower side of the (incomplete) tail is densely peppered with grey, most densely at the lateral sides of the (divided) subcaudals.
