[1] The tip of the elongated head capsule is spheroidal, shiny and chestnut in colour while the remainder of the process is black with fine white spotting.

[3] The species was described by John Obadiah Westwood in 1839 in the Transactions of the Linnean Society under the genus Fulgora.

The type specimen came from Assam through the collections of Theodore Edward Cantor based on which Westwood described the key features in Latin, noting specifically the upward curve of the cephalic process with its enlarged and rounded dull-brick-red tip, "apiceque adscendente, et in globum subrotundum, subpellucidum, laete testaceum terminato".

[2] Arthur Gardiner Butler described the tip of the rostrum as bearing a "ludicrous resemblance to a "vesuvian" cigar-light" (a kind of early matchstick used to light cigars).

[5] A paler form which was described as a subspecies mizunumai (Sato & Nagai, 1994) is not considered valid.