Cuc's Mountain Snake

description

Description of holotype. Body stout, cylindrical; head short (3.3 % of SVL), not distinct from the thick neck, depressed, flat anterior to eyes, dorsally covered with large shields; snout long, 30.9 % of HL, 5.5 times as long as diameter of eye, blunt from above and in profile, slightly depressed; nostrils in dorsal position and oblique, crescentic and very narrow, piercing the middle of divided nasal; eye small, diameter 0.5 times the distance between its inferior margin and edge of upper lip; pupil round; tail rather short and thick but incomplete in holotype. Size. – SVL: 398 mm; TaL:> 66 mm; TL:> 464 mm; HL: 13.0 mm (from tip of snout to angles of the jaws); ratio TaL / TL:> 0.142. Dentition. Maxillary teeth: left upper maxilla with 24 subequal teeth or tooth sockets, without any diastema. Body scalation. DSR: 23 – 19 – 19, all smooth, rather large. Dorsal scale row reductions: 4 + 5 ↔ 4 (8) (left) 3 + 4 ↔ 3 (19) (left) 23 ————————— 21 21 ————————— 19 3 + 4 ↔ 3 (11) (right) 3 + 4 ↔ 3 (24) (right) 191 VEN (+ 3 preventrals); 44 SC (tail incomplete), all paired. Cloacal divided. Head scalation. Rostral pentagonal, as high as wide, well visible from above; nasals large, subrectangu

A new species of the genus Opisthotropis Günther, 1872 (Squamata: Natricidae) from the highlands of Kon Tum Province, Vietnam

description

Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. differs from O. boonsongi by its dorsal scales entirely smooth (vs. very strongly keeled in O. boonsongi with a broad keel), the loreal in contact with internasal (vs. not in contact), a higher number of ventrals (191 vs. 136 – 140), 1 anterior temporal (vs. 2), and 7 supralabials (vs. 8 – 9). Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. differs from O. kuatunensis by its dorsal scales entirely smooth (vs. distinctly keeled throughout in O. kuatunensis), the loreal in contact with internasal (vs. not in contact), 7 supralabials (vs. 13 – 16), 1 preocular (vs. 2), and the uniformly grey-brown dorsal pattern (vs. black lines on uniform dark background). Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. differs from O. typica by its dorsal scales entirely smooth (vs. weakly keeled throughout in O. typica), the loreal in contact with internasal (vs. not in contact), a higher number of ventrals (191 vs. 160 – 176), 7 supralabials (vs. 11 – 12), 1 preocular (vs. 2), and the uniformly grey-brown dorsal pattern (vs. blackish-brown). Lastly, Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. differs from Paratapinophis praemaxillaris by its loreal in contact with internasal (vs. not in contact in P. praemaxillaris), a h

A new species of the genus Opisthotropis Günther, 1872 (Squamata: Natricidae) from the highlands of Kon Tum Province, Vietnam

diagnosis

Diagnosis. A species of the genus Opisthotropis, characterized by the combination of the following characters: (1) 23 DSR at neck and 19 DSR at midbody; (2) 7 supralabials, 5 th entering orbit; (3) 1 anterior and 2 posterior temporals; (4) at least 191 ventral scales; (5) about 22 subequal upper maxillary teeth; and (6) body uniform at dorsum (i. e. not banded or striped), lighter below but without any stripe making a clear separation. A comparison with other species of the genus Opisthotropis and of morphologically similar natricine genera of Vietnam and adjacent regions is given in the Discussion. The high number of dorsal scale rows at neck and at midbody, the high number of ventral scales, and the uniform coloration of the dorsum clearly distinguish Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. from all other species of Opisthotropis.

A new species of the genus Opisthotropis Günther, 1872 (Squamata: Natricidae) from the highlands of Kon Tum Province, Vietnam

distribution

Distribution. Opisthotropis cucae sp. nov. is known only from the type locality in Kon Tum Plateau, Kon Tum Province, southern Central Vietnam (Fig. 4). Kon Tum Plateau is a mountainous region on the eastern fringe of the Truong Son Range (previously known as the Annamite Range). The plateau is a part of the Central Highlands of Vietnam, straddling northern Kon Tum and southern Quang Nam provinces. Mt Ngoc Linh, the highest point of Kon Tum Plateau, reaches 2,598 m asl. (Tordoff et al. 2000; Sterling et al. 2006). Natural history. The holotype was found in the secondary evergreen forest at an elevation of 740 m asl. The snake was collected at night (21: 30) under the water in a rocky stream (Fig. 5).

A new species of the genus Opisthotropis Günther, 1872 (Squamata: Natricidae) from the highlands of Kon Tum Province, Vietnam