White-lipped pit viper E-Book

Rickard Ljunggren

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 82

Beschreibung

Trimeresurus albolabris is to me an iconic snake. I have a few specimens of the species at home in my basement and it is a very nice snake to keep in a terrarium. I have also had the privilege of having this species on my snake hook in its natural habitat. The book tries to cover everything about the species, from husbandry to the pit viper's role in the Vietnam War.

Leseprobe

This book sprung from my genuine interest in snakes and my curiosity about history.

Many thanks to everyone who helped me get the book from an idea to a finished product.

Thank you all for letting me use your photos! Also, thanks to those of you who uploaded images, free to use, online! All photographers are mentioned under their photos.

Thanks to Scott Eipper for excellent proofreading!

Without an understanding family, this little book would certainly not have come about, thank you Jenny, Ludwig and Jacob! I spend far too much time on herpetology, but you let me.

Finally, a big thanks to those of you who choose to read my book! I hope you find the topic as interesting as I do!

Best regards

Rickard

Index

1. Preamble

2. Scientific classification

3. White-lipped pit viper as a weapon?

4. Tourism in southeast Asia

5. White-lipped pit viper

6. Care sheet

7. Venom

8. If you get bit

9. Thanks!

1. Preamble

The white-lipped pit viper, Trimeresurus albolabris, is to me an iconic snake. I have a few specimens of the species at home in the basement and it is a very nice species to keep in terrariums.

I have also had the privilege of having albolabris on my snake hook when I was in Thailand where the species is quite common in the wild.

It is, to me, simply the "original version" of a pit viper and it is often the first species that comes to mind when someone mentions pit vipers. For many in the terrarium hobby, it is also the first venomous snake they acquire. They are small, readily accessible and affordable. Since they are quite common in the hobby, there is also help and knowledge to be gained from others, especially if you choose to join a herpetological association. You can often find members in these associations who share your specific interest in the species of your interest and some members have many years of experience.

Trimeresurus albolabris is probably also the species that the tourist in Asia thinks of when they talk about pit vipers.

This book is an English version of a book I wrote in Swedish in the summer of 2023. Some additions have been made and I believe the English version is a more complete book.

The final touch of the Swedish version was written on holiday in Thailand and the following days at home. This summer will also be spent in Thailand, hopefully with a pit viper on my snake hook now and then.

It is my first attempt to write in English and I hope you like it!

Photo: Rickard Ljunggren. A male Trimeresurus albolabris showing off his defensive behavior. A few seconds after the picture was taken, the snake made several strikes and really wanted to bite me. If you keep pit vipers at home, you must be careful and keep your fingers at a safe distance.

Unfortunately, it is always a bit confusing with names of species when we do not use scientific names. In English, the Trimeresurus albolabris is often called white-lipped pit viper, but also white-lipped tree viper and sometimes bamboo viper. The name bamboo viper is shared with other species such as Trimeresurus stejnegeri and Craspedocephalus ( former Trimeresurus) gramineus. A bit confusing and therefore I will use the name albolabris in this book, it is also the name I prefer to use on a daily basis.

The genus Trimeresurus probably contains somewhere between 35 and 50 known species, all of which are found in Asia. You can find these vipers from Pakistan, India, Japan and China to the countries of Southeast Asia, as well as on some island groups in the Pacific Ocean. According to Wikipedia, the number of species is 35 if you read the Swedish version, 44 if you choose the English instead, the French version finds 50 species and likewise do the Spanish, while in China they have settled for 43 species. In any case, these were numbers given in November 2022 when I wrote the introduction to this little book, the Swedish version. I am certain these numbers have changed after that, since then I have read about new species a couple of times*. The number of species depends on who and when you ask, and the number is in constant change it seems.

Some species are divided and become several species, some species are moved to other genera and again some species are moved back to the genus Trimeresurus and so on.

I sometimes wonder why albolabris hasn’t gone through the split that many species go through. It is one of the pit vipers with the largest distribution within Asia and I think it will be split into several species at some point.

*I am going through the proofreading of this text in July 2024 and right now there are 49 species in the genus Trimeresurus according to The Reptile Database, but cyanolabris, kraensis, lanna and tenasserimensis are not among them.

What can be said with certainty is that the number of species in this genus will change. Species will split and it is likely that we will see the genus Trimeresurus split again.

There is access to many beautiful pit vipers in the hobby, of which several species that were previously very difficult to obtain and difficult to afford are now both available and affordable in price. In fairness, there are species of Asian pit vipers that I think are more beautiful than albolabris, but a decent collection of Asian pit vipers should include at least an albolabris or two. A favorite of mine is Trimeresurus macrops (has changed genus but is back to Trimeresurus again) as I have always liked snakes with big eyes. The species' English popular name is large-eyed pit viper, which describes this snake quite well. I also have the privilege of having Trimeresurus venustus and Trimeresurus insularis, both of which are fantastically beautiful species. Enough about these and enough about me because this thin book will be about Trimeresurus albolabris, the pit viper of pit vipers.

Photo: Rickard Ljunggren. The female is the larger of the two, the male has his white stripe down the side of his body.

2. Scientific classification

Domain

Eukaryotes

Eukaryota

Kingdom

Animals

Animalia

Phylum

Chordate

Chordata

Subphylum

Vertebrates

Vertebrata

Class

Reptiles

Reptilia

Order

Squamates

Squamata

Suborder

Snakes

Serpentes

Family

Vipers

Viperidae

Genus

Trimeresurus

Species

Trimeresurus albolabris

Synonym Trimesurus albolabris GRAY 1842: 48 (unjustified emendation)

Trimesurus albolabris — GRAY 1849

Lachesis gramineus albolabris — MELL 1922

Trimeresurus albolabris — POPE & POPE 1933

Trimeresurus albolabris albolabris — KRAMER 1977

Coluber gramineus — RAFFLES 1822 (nec Coluber gramineus SHAW 1802) (partim)

Trigonocephalus viridis — MÜLLER & SCHLEGEL 1842 (nec Vipera viridis DAUDIN 1803) (partim)

Trigonocephalus gramineus — CANTOR 1847 (nec Coluber gramineus SHAW 1802)

Trimeresurus gramineus — BOULENGER 1890 (nec Coluber gramineus SHAW 1802)

Lachesis gramineus — BOULENGER 1896 (nec Coluber gramineus SHAW 1802)

Lachesis grammineus (sic) — BRONGERSMA 1929

Bothrops erythrurus — LIDTH DE JEUDE 1890 (nec Trigonocephalus erythrurus CANTOR 1839)

Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus var. bicolor) — BOULENGER 1890 (nec Trimeresurus bicolor GRAY 1853, a synonym of Trigonocephalus erythrurus CANTOR 1839

Trimeresurus gramineus albolabris — MELL 1929

Trimeresurus albolabris — POPE & POPE 1933

Trimeresurus albolabris albolabris — WELCH 1994: 113

Trimeresurus albolabris — MANTHEY & GROSSMANN 1997: 407

Trimeresurus albolabris albolabris — COX et al. 1998: 20

Trimeresurus albolabris — MCDIARMID, CAMPBELL & TOURÉ 1999: 329

Cryptelytrops albolabris — MALHOTRA & THORPE 2004

Trimeresurus (Trimeresurus) albolabris — DAVID et al. 2011

Trimeresurus albolabris — WALLACH et al. 2014: 740

Cryptelytrops albolabris — CHAN-ARD et al. 2015: 284

Trimeresurus albolabris — WANG et al. 2022

Scientific name

Trimeresurus albolabris

Author Gray, 1842

Trimeresurus is Latin and refers to the "three-part tail", probably named after the tail's three-part pattern with a red line and green sides. You can see the red tail on page 50 and 63. Albo labris is also Latin and means "white lips", the name refers to the males' white line along the body that runs all the way to the front of the face and creates a lighter upper lip. The females lack this line and thus also the white lip as you can see on page 12.

Author names are, within biological systematics, the name of the person or group of persons who first used a particular scientific name for a particular taxon, such as a species or other biological entity. This must also be done in accordance within the rules outlined by the ICZN. Author goes back to the Latin auctor which means, among other things, "author" and "originator".

For this books albolabris , the author is John Edward Gray (12 February 1800 – 7 March 1875) who was a British zoologist. He was the older brother of the zoologist George Robert Gray and the son of the pharmacologist and botanist Samuel Frederick Gray. Gray was born in Walsall, which is roughly between Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

Photo: Wikimedia commons, photographer unknown.

The motif is an engraving made by Thomas Herbert Maguire in 1851 and depicting J E Gray.

While growing up, Gray's family moved to London, where he came to study medicine. He began his zoological career by volunteering to collect insects for the British Museum at the age of 15.

After being "blackballed" (voted out) by the Linnean Society of London, Gray shifted his interest from botany to zoology.

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