Lamnostoma Kaup, 1856

Chiu, Yung-Chieh, Shao, Kwang-Tsao, Huang, Shih-Pin & Chen, Hong-Ming, 2018, The freshwater snake eel genus Lamnostoma (Anguilliformes: Ophichthidae) in Taiwan, with description of a new species, Zootaxa 4454 (1) : -

Genus Lamnostoma Kaup, 1856

Lamnostoma Kaup, 1856a: 49 . Type species: L. pictum Kaup, 1856 = Dalophis orientalis McClelland, 1844 = Lamnostoma orientalis ( McClelland, 1844) .

Anguisurus Kaup, 1856a: 24 . Kaup, 1856b: 50. Type species: A. punctulatus Kaup, 1856 = Dalophis orientalis McClelland, 1844 = Lamnostoma orientalis ( McClelland, 1844) .

Diagnosis. Body stout, cylindrical, and slightly longer than tail; vent near midpoint of TL; snout pointed and slightly slender; eye small to moderate; anterior nostril slightly tubular, ear-shaped, with a cutaneous adjunct on its inner edge, its posterior nostril rim produced into a flap; gill opening lateral or oblique; dorsal fin origin above or behind gill opening; tp2 absent and pop3 sometimes present; teeth pointed, and recurved, those in jaws uniserial or biserial, intermaxillary and vomerine teeth largest and widely spaced. Coloration generally darker dorsally, with a continuous band of spots across the neck dorsally.

Remarks. Lamnostoma orientalis was initially assigned to the genus Dalophis ; however, the species can be clearly separated from the genus Dalophis McClelland, 1844 by a combination of characters with the Dalophis eels having a tail that is longer than the head and trunk and the dorsal fin origin before the gill opening. The genus Anguisurus Kaup, 1856 was considered to be a junior synonym of Lamnostoma by McCosker (1977). In this study, we revise the diagnosis of the genus Lamnostoma to include the presence of 3 preopercular pores in at least one species, our new species Lamnostoma taiwanense .