Shore Pit Viper

Fascinating facts about the Shore Pit Viper

• Male mangrove pit vipers reach just 66.5 cm (26.2 in) long, while females can grow to 90 cm (35 in), making the females almost a third longer than the males.
• Their bodies are covered in 25–27 rows of scales around the mid-section, and a single male can have up to 179 ventral scales and 76 paired subcaudal scales, whereas females top out at 183 ventrals and 63 subcaudals.
• This viper’s range stretches across the mangroves of Bangladesh, India, Burma, Thailand, West Malaysia, Singapore, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java.

At a glance

About the Shore Pit Viper

The shore pit viper, Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus, is a venomous pit viper native to India, Bangladesh and Southeast Asia. Males reach about 66.5 cm (26.2 in) in total length, while females grow larger, up to 90 cm (35 in). Tail lengths are up to 12.5 cm for males and 14 cm for females. Its scalation includes 25-27 longitudinal rows at mid-body, 11-13 upper labials, and a narrow supraocular region sometimes broken into small scales; the head bears small, tuberculate or granular scales, and the temporal scales are keeled. Coloration is highly variable, with dorsal hues ranging from olive and grayish to dark purplish-brown, and ventral surfaces that may be whitish, greenish or brown, sometimes spotted. A light line bordering the first ventral scale row may be present or absent, and the head is typically olive suffused with brown. Males have hemipenes without spines.

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