| Diagnosis: |
This species is distinguished from its congeners by the following characters: anterior nasal flaps not reaching the upper lip (vs. flaps reaching upper lip, and sometimes covering it, in canicula, cervigoni, comoroensis, duhamelii, garmani, stellaris); absence of nasoral grooves and posterior nasal flaps situated posterior to excurrent apertures (vs. present and posterior nasal flaps laterally situated in canicula, duhamelii); mouth length less than half of mouth width (vs. mouth length more than or equal half of mouth width except in torazame, ugoi); anal fin height more than caudal peduncle height (vs. less in boa, duhamelii, torazame, torrei), and greater than or equal to half of mouth width (vs. less than half of mouth width in boa, capensis, duhamelii, haeckelii, hesperius, meadi, torazame, torrei, ugoi); saddles darker than the background color (vs. inconspicuous or absent in boa, cabofriensis, cervigoni, duhamelii, garmani, torrei, and dark lines in retifer). Colouration: body grayish brown to dark brown with well-defined light spots and small dark spots (vs. no spots in retifer, yellow to golden spots in capensis, no light spots in cervigoni, garmani, meadi, retifer, and no dark spots in capensis, comoroensis, hesperius, meadi, torazame, torrei); light spots spiracle-sized or larger (vs. predominantly smaller than spiracles in boa, cabofriensis, canicula, duhamelii, stellaris, ugoi); dark spots smaller than spiracles (vs. predominantly larger than spiracles in cervigoni, duhamelii, garmani, haeckelii, stellaris); number of monospondylous vertebrae 34-36 (vs. counts higher except in duhamelii, torazame, torrei); clasper with hooks (vs. none inn other pecies except torazame); accessory terminal cartilage present (vs. absent in cabofriensis, cervigoni, comoroensis, duhamelii, haeckelii, stellaris, torrei, ugoi); egg case surface with irregularities (vs. smooth in all other species) (Ref. 125694). |