Hydrophis lapemoides (Gray, 1849)

Rezaie-Atagholipour, Mohsen, Ghezellou, Parviz, Hesni, Majid Askari, Dakhteh, Seyyed Mohammad Hashem, Ahmadian, Hooman & Vidal, Nicolas, 2016, Sea snakes (Elapidae, Hydrophiinae) in their westernmost extent: an updated and illustrated checklist and key to the species in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, ZooKeys 622, pp. 129-164 : 147-150

Taxon classification Animalia Squamata Elapidae

Hydrophis lapemoides (Gray, 1849) Figures 4d, 21, 22

Aturia lapemoides Gray, 1849: 46.

Distira lapemidoides - Werner 1895: 20. - Boulenger 1896: 297.

Hydrophis lapemoides - Smith 1926: 86. - Kennedy 1937: 748. - Volsøe 1939: 19. - Corkill and Cochrane 1965: 494. - Joger 1984: 33. - Leviton and Aldrich 1984: XXIV. - Gasperetti 1988: 312. - Leviton et al. 1992: 123. - Rasmussen 1993: 97. - Carpenter et al. 1997: 247. - Firouz 1999: 192. - Latifi 2000: 340. - Baldwin and Gardner 2005: 249. - Firouz 2005: 209. - Soorae et al. 2006: 109. - Egan 2007: 148. - Rastegar-Pouyani et al. 2008: 20. - Safaei and Esmaili 2009: 45. - Soorae et al. 2010: 535. - Safaei-Mahroo et al. 2015: 282.

Chitulia lapemoides - Kamali 2013: 236.

Material examined.

Gulf of Oman: 1 specimen, Jask and Ras-Meydani, depth 18-50m [(ZMSBUK.HD.40), TL 775, SVL 702, HL 19, HW 9.2, GL 11.7, SNL 3.4, NEL 2.4, ND 30, GBD 65, NSL 7, NSR 30, BSR 43, NB 45], October and November 2013, collector: M. Rezaie-Atagholipour.

Diagnosis.

Head slightly small (Figure 22); [8 supralabials, second in contact with prefrontal, third and fourth or third, fourth and fifth touch eye ( Gasperetti 1988)] (Figure 21); body elongate but not markedly slender anteriorly (Figure 22); [290-404 ventrals ( Volsøe 1939)], slightly distinguishable from adjacent scales (Figure 4d); body scales in thickest part of body more or less quadrangular or hexagonal in shape and juxtaposed; [29-31 scale rows on neck, 41-46 on body ( Volsøe 1939)].

Coloration.

Body olive-whitish, dirty white, darker dorsally and paler ventrally; [41-55 ( Volsøe 1939)] black rings broader dorsally, or broader bands tapering to points on the sides, on the body and tail (Figure 22a); head black in juveniles, usually with a yellow horseshoe-shaped mark above; adults with head sometimes of same color as body without the horseshoe-shaped mark.

Size.

TL 775 mm (n = 1); [n = 8, mean TL 781 mm, maximum TL 895 mm ( Volsøe 1939)].

General distribution.

Indian Ocean, from the Persian Gulf to Malay Archipelago ( Minton 1966; Rasmussen 1987).

IUCN Red List Category.

Least concern ( IUCN 2016).

Remarks.

Hydrophis lapemoides may be easily misidentified with juveniles Hydrophis cyanocinctus in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman (for more details see remarks on Hydrophis cyanocinctus ). Rasmussen (1993) suggested that Hydrophis lapemoides is very abundant in the Persian Gulf. Gasperetti (1988) mentioned that Hydrophis lapemoides along with Hydrophis cyanocinctus are the most abundant sea snakes in both gulfs. We however could catch only one specimen during our field surveys, which was collected from Jask in the western Gulf of Oman.