Shame it's wrong!

The snake is actually a male of a member of the popeiorum complex, which was described a year ago by David et al. as Trimeresurus fucatus, and would, under the Malhotra and Thorpe reclassification, be known as Popeia fucata. These were until now regarded as a southern population of Popeia/Trimeresurus popeiorum. Distinguishing characters from venustus include the lack of dark spots on the supralabials, the small white spots along the vertebral line and the very clearly defined postocularstripe with the white line at its lower edge.

>>Al,
>>I thought Cryptelytrops only applied to the Green Treen Pit Viper complex, i.e. albolabris,erythurus, popeiorum, etc.?
>>
>>Maybe Wolfgang Wuster will jump in here and straighten or sort this out!

Your wish is my command

More seriously, Crytelytrops includes kanburiensis, venustus and purpureomaculatus, as well as some of the uniformly green Trims (albolabris, erythrurus, macrops etc.), but not some of the other green species such as stejnegeri and popeiorum, which are in different genera. For a summary of the reclassification of the Trimeresurus group, see the link below.

One recurring theme in Trimeresurus group systeamtics is that different colour patterns in Trims have evolved repeatedly and convergently in many different lineages - the resemblance between Popeia fucata and Cryptelytrops venustus, as shown in this example here, is one obvious example, as is the fact that Popeia poepiorum and Viridovipera stejnegeri are virtually indistinguishable except through their hemipenes (and DNA), even though they are only very distantly related. On the other hand, some forms that are very dissimilar (e.g., erythrurus and purpureomaculatus) are very closely related and genetically hard to distinguish, despite conspicuously different external appearances.

Cheers,

Wolfgang
Venomous Snake Systeamtics Alert


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