Fig. 4. Confirming the individual's identification as Toxicocalamus ernstmayri. (A) Close-up of the snake shown in Fig. 2C with insets B, C, and D indicated. (B, B') Head and neck in extreme close-up. Color coding of head scalation includes six supralabials (orange), one anterior temporal (yellow), and two posterior temporals (blue), but no temporolabial (see Fig. 5). The head scutes appear to comply with the colubrid-elapid nine dorsal scute arrangement (i.e., two internasals, two prefrontals, one frontal, two supraoculars, and two parietals; therefore lacking any head scute fusion, although this is difficult to discern from the magnified image with accuracy. (C, C') Based on the visible dorsal scales, the dorsal scale count on the anterior body is 15. The count is achieved by locating the vertebral scale row and counting down to the lowest dorsal scale row (eight scales), doubling the count, and subtracting one scale to account for the single vertebral scale row. (D, D') The dorsal scale count at midbody, performed as described for the previous panel, is also 15.

Published as part of O'Shea, Mark, Herlihy, Brian, Paivu, Blaise, Parker, Fred, Richards, Stephen J. & Kaiser, Hinrich, 2018, Rediscovery of the rare Star Mountains Worm-eating Snake, Toxicocalamus ernstmayri O'Shea et al., 2015 (Serpentes: Elapidae: Hydrophiinae) with the description of its coloration in life, pp. 27-34 in Amphibian & Reptile Conservation (e154) 12 (1) on page 31, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.11385946