Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi there all,

The question that I have regarding these wornderful animals is rather short. Is there a definitive scientific publication that deals with the taxonomy, phylogeny and biogeography of the genus Trimeresurus? If so, where is it?

I am sure that this is something that any tree viper fan would absolutely love to get their hands on. The reason that I ask is because I am faced with a bit of problem, that is that I like to know what I am looking at. I have a guide to the snakes of South East Asia, but it is very superficial when it comes to this group of snakes.

I am currently traveling in Malaysia where I am spending as much of my time staggering around in the forest at night as possible, looking for all the interesting little creatures in order to photograph them. I must admit that snakes are little harder to come by than frogs or scorpions, and as of yet I have only seen any Trimeresurus in zoos, snake parks and butterfly gardens.

Today I saw what I think might be T. popeorum for the first time. I am currently in the Cameron highlands, and my jaw just about hit the floor when I saw them. They have a blue stripe running down each side, just like some of the T. steijngeri pics I have seen. I also saw a Temple viper, much, much greener than the ones from the lowlands which are more yellow. Still has the typical patterning of the specimens from the pensinsula though.

For those that would like to know, my experience with herps in this part of the world has been very bitter sweet so far. I have seen animals that fetch very high prices in western countries while roaming around in caves, really awesome experience. At the same time I have seen the complete lack of care that they have when in captivity anywhere. I think that the mentality goes something like: "Oh well, if it dies we will just catch another one".

Thanks in advance to anyone that can help me out with any info on actually identifying tree vipers in the field.

Cherio for now

Ian

>>Today I saw what I think might be T. popeorum for the first time. I am currently in the Cameron highlands, and my jaw just about hit the floor when I saw them. They have a blue stripe running down each side, just like some of the T. steijngeri pics I have seen.

T. popeiorum is definitely the common green pitviper in the Cameron Highlands.

The other widespread green pitviper in the Malayan Peninsula is T. hageni, but this tends to be more common in more low-lyign areas, grows bigger, and often has a series of pink spots along each side of the back. In most SE Asian books, this species is mislabelled as T. sumatranus. T. sumatranus is actually very rare and localised in the Malayan Peninsula, and only a handful of specimens are known. It can be distinguished from the others by having very conspicuous black edges to the head scales, as in the photo below.

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WW

WW Home

I will link some photo's that I have taken for you, this one is Trim Hageni

Trimeresurus Sumatranus

Trimeresurus Hageni Adult with white blue spots

Still not sure on this one hopefully WW can clear this one up for us is this steijngeri or just a red eye popes from a different island. As to Trimeresurus I hear they are working on re classification of the whole ssp. A girl in the UK is working on venom study and going to put this all in order from my understanding. I hope this is true cause these snakes can confuse the heck out of you. I can't wait till my friend breeds the trio of sumatranus he has those snakes have to be one of the best on this planet for sure, green with black bands need I saw more.

I am no expert by any means on this group, and it's been many years (>20) since I have worked with them. The pictured animal could be a stejnegeri, with the light facial stripe high, above the supralabials. It might also be a T. albolabris. These are more green like popes, but have the ventrolateral light stripe, and their white facial stripe is lower on the supralabials and sometimes bluish (if I remember correctly??).

Regardless, the photos are beautiful. I hope someone posts a definitive answer.