v3i1.38

Submitted date: 01 April 2011
Accepted date: 13 June 2011
Published date: 30 July 2011
Pp. 11–14.

ON A RARE, SOUTH INDIAN BURROWING SNAKE Platyplectrurus trilineatus (BEDDOME, 1867)

S.R. Ganesh*
*E-mail: snakeranglerr@gmail.com

Abstract
Examination of five juvenile preserved specimens of Platyplectrurus trilineatus, an endemic, poorly-known Uropeltid snake species from the Western Ghats Mountains of Southwestern India provided further insights into its taxonomy. The sample examined here agreed well with the existing descriptions in literature in colouration and most aspects of scalation but had larger range of ventral scale count and smaller supraocular relative to prefrontal. Character definition (in the case of ventrals) and ontogenic variation (in the case of supraocular size) might have possibly created these discrepancies. These differences indicate that a better sampling of both specimens and characters would throw more light on this species.

Key words : morphology, characterization, lepidosis, habitus, colouration

Section Editor: Gernot Vogel