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A new species of snail-eating snakes of the genus Pareas Wagler, 1830 is described from the eastern Himalayas. The species Pareas kaduri sp. nov. differs from all known species of the genus in bearing the following suite of characters: SVL 455–550 mm, TaL/TL 0.184–0.207, brown dorsum with black transverse bands throughout the body, 15 dorsal scale rows throughout the body and mid-dorsal vertebral scale rows enlarged, 8 rows keeled in males, loreal not touching orbit, ventrals 160–183, subcaudals 65–70 in males, 52 in one female specimen, hemipenis short, unilobed and 6–7 maxillary teeth. Molecular data for mitochondrial 16S rRNA and cytochrome b genes further attest the distinctness of the new species, which was recovered as a member of the Pareas hamptoni clade. Our work brings the total number of species recognized within the genus Pareas to 20.
We describe a new species of the genus Zhangixalus Li, Jiang, Ren & Jiang, 2019 from Ha Giang Province, Vietnam based on morphological and molecular data. In the molecular phylogenetic analyses, the new species is nested in the Zhangixalus duboisi (Ohler, Marquis, Swan & Grosjean, 2000) group, where it is sister to Z. duboisi with a genetic distance of 2.51%. The new species, Zhangixalus franki sp. nov., differs from its congeners by a combination of the following morphological characters: size large, SVL 77.9–85.8 mm in males; finger webbing formula I1-1II0-1III½-0IV; dorsal surface of head and body green with dark brown spots; ventral surface grey or dark grey, white stripe along edge of jaw, insertion of limbs, and along lateral ridges of fore and hind limbs and flank, separating upper green part from lower grey part. The new species occurs in evergreen montane tropical forests at an elevation of ca 1300 m a.s.l. The new discovery brings the total number of known species in the genus Zhangixalus to 38 and the species number reported from Vietnam to nine.