Allips concolor McCosker (1972)

Mohanty, Swarup Ranjan, Mohapatra, Anil & Murmu, Laxman Kumar, 2020, Occurrence of rare smalleye snake eel, Allips concolor McCosker, 1972 (Anguilliformes: Ophichthidae) along Paradeep coast, Odisha, India, Records of the Zoological Survey of India 120 (3), pp. 277-280 : 277-279

Allips concolor McCosker (1972)

1972. Allips concolor McCosker, Proc. Calif. Acad. Sci. (Series 4) 39 (10): 117. Figs. 4–5.

Material examined: EBRC /ZSI F11760. 1 ex., 496 mm, Paradeep fish landing centre (20°17’25.90”N; 86°42’26.73”E), Odisha, India, 08.xii.2019, Swarup Ranjan Mohanty .

Diagnostic characters: Body of this eel elongated and cylindrical, with dorsal fin origin about one head length behind gill opening, having pre-dorsal length 9.0 in total length (TL). Dorsal and anal fins low, lying within a shallow groove. Both the fins end before the tail tip, thus tail tip finless Preanal length 1.7 in TL and tail 2.4 in TL head length (HL) 18.5 in TL. Snout pointed, 8.6 in HL. Upper jaw longer than the lower jaw, 5.4 in HL Eye small, situated towards rictus, 38.3; interorbital width

15.8 in HL. Pectoral fin very minute Gill opening placed laterally. Body depth at gill opening and at anus is 72.9 and 95.4 respectively in TL. Anterior nostril a small tube like structure where as posterior nostril opens into the mouth but covered with a small flap. Head pores and teeth very minute maxillary teeth uniserial at both the end with overlapping middle point vomerine teeth with a small patch of biserial and followed by uniserial row of teeth prevomerine teeth 2 on each side and single teeth at middle pre-dorsal vertebrae 19, preanal vertebrae 101 and total vertebrae 182 ( Table 1).

Colour: Uniform light brown in colour after preservation ( Figure 1 ), but in fresh yellowish brown in dorsally and whitish in ventrally.

Distribution: Allips concolor one of the most rare species and distributed in Thailand ( McCosker, 1972); Australia ( Larson et al., 2013); Taiwan ( Ho et al., 2018) and India ( Mohapatra et al., 2018).

Figures

Figure 1. Allips concolor from Paradeep coast.