Hydrophis melanocinctus Wall, 1906

Mondal, Sonia, Ganesh, S. R., Sethy, P. G. S., Raghunathan, C., Raha, Sujoy & Sarkar, Sagnik, 2022, Redescriptions of the type specimens of synonymous nominal taxa of sea snakes (Serpentes: Elapidae: Hydrophis, Laticauda) at the Zoological Survey of India, Zootaxa 5169 (4), pp. 301-321 : 315

Hydrophis melanocinctus Wall, 1906

synonym of Hydrophis spiralis ( Shaw, 1802)

( Table 1 ; Fig. 8 )

Material Examined. ZSI 14470 Holotype from Puri , Odisha (Eastern India).

Description. Head small, head shields large, regular; Rostral broader than high; Nasal superior in position, nasal shield in contact with each other; Prefrontal elongate, 2 nd Supralabial touching prefrontal; Frontal longer than the distance from the tip of the rostral; Parietal longer than wide; One large anterior temporal; One Supraocular on each side of head; One Pre- and Postocular on each side of head; Supralabials 7; 3 rd and 4 th touching eye; Seven infralabials on each side of head; Chin shield and Scales around neck in fragile condition; Scales around midbody 40; Ventral, Preanal and Head width, depth and length not measurable as the specimen is in fragile condition; Snout to Vent length 228.0 mm;. Dorsally and ventrally the entire body brown. Number of bands not discernable due to faded colouration.

Remarks. Specimen is in fragile condition and hence some of the measurements (e.g. tail length) could not be taken. Wall (1906) stated the counts to be scale rows 25:39:39 and ventrals 380, whereas Smith (1926) stated it to be an unsexed young one, with scale rows 25:44 and ventrals “366(?)” indicating his uncertainty over the count. Wall (1909) synonymized H. melanocinctus under H. fasciatus , but Smith (1926, 1943) treated it as a synonym of H. spiralis , where it now rests ( Wallach et al. 2014; Ganesh et al. 2019; Boundy 2020). See comments under H. alcocki entry, for mix-up of the registration number with the type of H. melanocinctus .

Figures

FIGURE 8. Holotype of Hydrophis melanocinctus ZSI 14470, dorsal (top), ventral (middle) and lateral (bottom) aspects. Photograph by Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.