[2] The specific name, pealii, is in honor of Samuel E. Peal (died 1897), an ethnographer and tea planter in Assam, who collected the two specimens from which British zoologist William Lutley Sclater described this snake as a species new to science.

[4] H. pealii has been recorded from the Indian states of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

On each side are two light stripes, an upper narrow one, and a broader lower one, which is two scales wide.

The ventrals are very dark brown, marked with light yellow laterally.

There is also a faint yellow stripe along the center of the ventrals, which becomes more distinct posteriorly.