HOLARCHUS 145 



HOLARCHUS BURKSI Taylor 

 Plate 16 - 

 Holarchus bnrksi Tayloe, Philip. Jouni. Sci. § D 13 (1918) 365, pi. 2. 



Description of type. — (No. 200, E. H. Taylor collection; col- 

 lected at Sumagui, Mindoro, December, 1916, by Clark Burks.) 

 Head rather distinct from neck ; rostral high, bending back over 

 snout, pointed behind ; internasals narrowed on inner side, much 

 wider than long, the suture between them much less than pre- 

 frontal suture ; prefrontals somewhat rectangular, almost twice 

 as wide as long; frontal shield-shaped, much longer than its 

 distance from end of snout, equal to parietal in length, not twice 

 as broad as supraocular but of nearly equal length ; parietals as 

 broad as long, bordered by 2 temporals; nasal undivided, the 

 anterior portion much the higher ; loreal large, longer than wide ; 

 a single elongate preocular, widely separated from frontal; 2 

 subequal postoculars ; temporals 1 -|- 2 ; 7 upper labials, fourth 

 alone entering eye ; upper margin of labial series very much 

 broken ; 7 lower labials, 4 touching the large chin shields ; second 

 pair of chin shields about half the size of first pair; scales in 17 

 rows, smooth ; the smallest scales are the dorsal, of angular 

 shape; laterally, the scales are larger and rounding; ventrals, 

 154; anal divided; subcaudals, 32. 



Color in life. — Above grayish brown, becoming more gray later- 

 ally, with a median, dorsal salmon-pink streak going the length 

 of body; body traversed by twenty saddlelike blotches which 

 widen medially to the width of three scales and narrow greatly 

 laterally, usually to the width of one scale ; the blotches are black, 

 inclosing a gray spot dorsally, the entire blotch edged with a 

 narrow grayish white line, less apparent medially; between each 

 two blotches laterally there is a series of two or three small, elon- 

 gate, white-edged, dark spots, each smaller than a scale; neck 

 with a forked blotch, each leg of which begins laterally at the 

 seventh ventral and extends upward and forward where the two 

 meet medially, some distance behind parietals, and run forward 

 much narrowed to the middle of frontal ; a dark broad line below 

 eye, which is more or less continuous with a band crossing snout 

 on or about the anterior level of eyes ; a diagonal line beginning 

 on second ventral runs up to parietals ; a spot below nostril and 

 another on sixth labial ; two or three spots on lower labials ; four 

 ventrals on neck with spots; ventrally, an immaculate, brilliant, 

 rosy pink, almost red toward end of body. 



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