[4] The species was described in 1877 by then Lt Col Richard Henry Beddome of the Madras Presidency Army, from a single male specimen obtained from the woods on "Patinghe hill" in the Jeypore forests of present-day Odisha, at an altitude of 1,300 metres (4,200 ft).

After many months of research, the CES and the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) put together expeditions in high elevation areas of the Eastern Ghats in southern Odisha in September 2010 and northern Andhra Pradesh in November 2011.

Head covered with large subequal flat granules; rostral quadrangular, twice as broad as deep, with median cleft above; nostril pierced between the rostral, the first labial, and three nasals; 10 upper and 7 lower labials; mental triangular; a pair of large chin-shields forming a suture behind the point of the mental, surrounded by much smaller chin-shields.

Body covered above with uniform juxtaposed large squarish or hexagonal flat scales arranged regularly like the bricks of a wall.

The snout to vent length is 5 cm (2 in).Measurements :[8] The lizard appears to inhabit semi-evergreen forests in high elevation areas (> 1,200 metres (3,900 ft)) of the Eastern Ghats of southern Odisha and northern Andhra Pradesh.