Salea anamallayana (Beddome, 1878)

Das, Sunandan, Campbell, Patrick D., Deuti, Kaushik, Bag, Probhat & Raha, Sujoy, 2019, A contribution to the systematics of Salea anamallayana (Beddome, 1878) and S. horsfieldii Gray, 1845 (Squamata: Agamidae: Draconinae), Zootaxa 4563 (3), pp. 563-583 : 576

Comparison between Salea anamallayana and S. horsfieldii

Traditionally Salea anamllayana and S. horsfieldii have been distinguished from each other by the following combination of characters—continuous nuchal and dorsal crest, unequal dorsal scales and ante-humeral fold in S. anamallayana (vs. nuchal and dorsal discontinuous, equal dorsal scales and no ante-humeral fold in S. horsfieldii ) ( Smith 1935). We observed some other differences which may serve as diagnostic differences enabling us to differentiate between the two especially if the state of aforesaid characters could not be determined in partially damaged specimens of this genus. The gular scales of S. horsfieldii are strongly keeled and mucronate while these are either smooth or weakly keeled and never mucronate in S. anamallayana . The nasal scale contacts 1 st and 2 nd supralabials in S. horsfieldii but generally only the 1 st supralabial touches the nasal in S. anamallayana . S. horsfieldii has between 43–59 longitudinal rows of ventral scales, whilst S. anamallayana has between 57–84. Though CL/SVL helps to distinguish the two taxa to some extent, morphometrics alone is not sufficient for the purposes of identification.