This species is distinguished from its congeners in peninsular India by the following set of characters: body depth at dorsal-fin origin, 19.6-19.9% SL; caudal-peduncle length 14.3-14.7% SL, depth 12.4-12.7 % SL, 86.4-88.1% its length; thoracic adhesive apparatus approximately pentagonal, as long as broad, with no median depression; skin of head and body minutely granulated; color when alive consists of a black background with 3 flesh-red or orange transverse bands on the body and when preserved, changing to dark-grey with black mottling and 3 whitish transverse bands. It differs from G. anamalaiensis, which most closely resembles it in the Indian peninsula, by its body depth (vs. 12.9-16.8% SL), deeper caudal peduncle (vs. 34.1-37.8% its length), longer nasal barbels reaching the anterior margin of the orbit (vs. reaching only half the distance to the orbit), and the thoracic adhesive apparatus (vs. adhesive apparatus broader than long, inverted V-shaped with short unculiferous ridges) (Ref. 84486).