Platurus affinis Anderson, 1871

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 : 319

Platurus affinis Anderson, 1871

synonym of Laticauda laticaudata ( Linnaeus, 1758)

( Table 1 ; Fig. 10 )

Material Examined. ZSI 8289 Holotype from Fallahs Mullah , Calcutta (sic from Tolly’s Nullah , Southern Calcutta, West Bengal, Eastern India fide Das et al. 1998).

Description. Head robust, head shield large, regular; Rostral broader than high; Nasal on lateral side separated by a pair of internasal; Prefrontal large, squarish; Frontal larger than the distance from the tip of the rostral; Parietal longer than wide; Temporals 1+2; One Supraocular on each sides of head; One Preocular on each sides of head; Two Postoculars on each sides of head, lower postocular much larger than upper postocular; Eight supralabials on each sides of head; 3 rd and 4 th touching the eye; 1 st very small; Seven Infralabials on each side of head; 4 infralabials touching the chin shield, 1 st and 2 nd infralabials small; Chinshield well developed; both the pair not in contact with each other; Scales around neck 19; Scales around Midbody 19; Ventrals 229, large; Subcaudals 34; Preanal large, divided; Anal large, divided; Head width 14.6 mm; Head depth 15.9 mm; Head length 30.4 mm; Snout to Vent length 1145.0 mm; Tail length 111.0 mm; Gravid female with 7 eggs. Head brown dorsally and ventrally. The entire body light black dorsally, light brown ventrally. Body encircled by dark brown bands, interspaces grey, broad dorsally extending till ventrals. All ventral scales light brown. Tail with dark brown bands both dorsally and ventrally. Number of bands 56 around the body till vent; Five bands on tail.

Remarks. Wall (1906) implicitly mentioned this specimen, but not in any detail. Smith (1926) stated it to be an adult female, with scale rows 19, ventrals 238 and subcaudals 35. Sclater (1891) listed ZSI 8289 from Tolly’s Nullah under the species account of “ Platurus laticaudatus ”, i.e. currently Laticauda laticaudata , though he did not explicitly remark on the type status of the specimen mentioned.

Figures

FIGURE 10. Holotype of Platurus affinis ZSI 8289, dorsal (top), ventral (middle) and lateral (bottom) aspects. Photograph by Zoological Survey of India, Kolkata.