What phenomenon compounds the difficulty in identifying L. capucinus based on appearance alone?
Answer
Polymorphism leading to significant dorsal pattern variation.
A major hurdle in separating species like *Lycodon capucinus* and *Lycodon aulicus* lies in their visual variability. This variability is known as polymorphism, meaning that individuals within the same species can display significantly different color patterns and markings. Even though many share the characteristic of dark markings on a lighter background, the exact arrangement can change drastically, sometimes even appearing broken into spots rather than distinct bands, making reliance solely on visual pattern comparison an unreliable method for definitive identification.
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