Hydrophis spiralis (Shaw, 1802)

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 : 143-144

Taxon classification Animalia Squamata Elapidae

Hydrophis spiralis (Shaw, 1802) Figures 3f, 14, 15

Hydrus spiralis Shaw, 1802: 564.

Hydrus temporalis - Blanford 1881: 680.

Hydrus robusta - Boulenger 1887: 408.

Hydrophis spiralis - Smith 1926: 48. - Volsøe 1939: 15. - Haas 1961: 21. - Leviton et al. 1992: 124. - Carpenter et al. 1997: 247. - Firouz 1999: 192. - Latifi 2000: 343. - Baldwin and Gardner 2005: 250. - Rastegar-Pouyani et al. 2008: 20. - Safaei and Esmaili 2009: 45. - Kamali 2013: 243. - Safaei-Mahroo et al. 2015: 282.

Hydrophis spiralis spiralis - Corkill and Cochrane 1965: 495. - Joger 1984: 34. - Leviton and Aldrich 1984: XXIV. - Gasperetti 1988: 315. - Firouz 2005: 209. - Egan 2007: 154. - Soorae et al. 2010: 535.

Material examined.

Gulf of Oman: 1 specimen, Jask, depth 1-3m [(ZMSBUK.HD.55), TL 1925, SVL 1775, HL 44.3, HW 20.6, GL 28, SNL 7.5, NEL 5.8, ND 67, GBD 90, NSL 7, NSR 30, BSR 38, NV 387, NB 61], December 2013, collector: M. Rezaie-Atagholipour.

Diagnosis.

Head of medium size (Figure 15); second supralabial touches prefrontal scale (Figure 14); body markedly elongate, not slender anteriorly (Figure 15d); 387 ventrals [363-385 ( Volsøe 1939)], slightly distinguishable from adjacent scales; [27-31 scale rows on neck, 34-38 on body (n = 4, Volsøe 1939; n = 1, present study)].

Coloration.

Yellowish body with 61 [30-60 more or less ( Gasperetti 1988)] narrow black rings, narrower than yellowish interspaces; head yellowish as body (Figure 15); [a black ventral line sometimes present, head blackish with a horseshoe-shaped mark above in young individuals ( Gasperetti 1988)].

Size.

TL 1925 mm (n = 1); [n = 4, mean TL 1587 mm; maximum TL 1984 mm ( Volsøe 1939)].

General distribution.

Indian Ocean, from the Persian Gulf to Malay Archipelago ( David and Ineich 1999).

IUCN Red List Category.

Least concern ( IUCN 2016).

Remarks.

Hydrophis spiralis is distinguishable from other species in the area by its yellow body and narrow black rings (narrower than yellow interspaces). This species is the longest among all marine hydrophiines ( Heatwole 1999). We could catch only one specimen of Hydrophis spiralis , which was collected from Jask in the western Gulf of Oman. Other authors however recorded the species from the Persian Gulf (e.g. Blanford 1881; Haas 1961; Volsøe 1939).