List of Arboreal Vipers of the World

Note: While an attempt has been made to include most members of the family Viperidae that have largely semi-arboreal or arboreal habits, this list is necessarily incomplete due to the exclusion of some snakes subjectively declared by this author as "terrestrial". The truth is that even some heavy-bodied mostly terrestrial species ascend bushes and trees, and it would be impossible to create a catalog of "arboreal" species that would satisfy all readers. Therefore, genera have been disqualified that may contain some semi-arboreal or arboreal snakes. Of note is the genus Bothrops, which contains some species that readily climb (e.g. Bothrops atrox, B. caribbaeus, B. insularis, B. lanceolatus), but has been overlooked here since most species are ground dwelling. Instead the genera Bothriechis and Bothriopsis, both formerly included within Bothrops and containing predominately arboreal species, are here the sole representatives of the New World Viperidae. In the case of the widespread genus Trimeresurus, which contains both terrestrial and arboreal species and the distinction may in some cases be arguable, only the more familiar and decidedly arboreal snakes have been included. For the sake of brevity this list neglects subspecies in those groups where they may be recognized.

 

Bothriechis  Peters, 1859
Palm Pitvipers

Bothriechis aurifer  (Salvin, 1860)
Yellow-blotched Palm Pitviper
Found in disjunct populations among the cloud forests and pine-oak forests of extreme westcentral Chiapas, Mexico and in Guatemala at 1200-2300 m.

Bothriechis bicolor  (Bocourt, 1868)
Guatemalan Palm Pitviper
Found in lower montane forests in extreme southern Mexico and western Honduras. May also occur in adjacent Guatemala and El Salvador at 500-2000 m.

Bothriechis lateralis  Peters, 1862
Side-striped Palm Pitviper
Found in lower montane forests and rainforests of central Costa Rica and Panama at 850-1980 m.

Bothriechis marchi  (Barbour and Loveridge, 1929)
March's Palm Pitviper
Found in the rainforests and cloud forests of the Atlantic drainage of Honduras at 500-1500 m.

Bothriechis nigroviridis  Peters, 1859
Black-speckled Palm Pitviper
Found in cloud forests and low and high montane forest in central Costa Rica and western Panama at 1150-2400 m.

Bothriechis rowleyi  (Bogert, 1968)
Rowley's Palm Pitviper
Found in cloud forest and pine-oak forest in extreme southeastern Oaxaca, Mexico at 1500-1830 m.

Bothriechis schlegelii  (Berthold, 1846)
Eyelash Palm Pitviper
Found in tropical forest, cloud forest, and montane forest in southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America at 0-2640 m.

 

Bothriopsis  Peters, 1861
Forest Pitvipers

Bothriopsis bilineata  (Wied-Neuwied, 1821)
Two-striped Forest Pitviper
Found in lowland rainforest often near water in Amazonia South America and the coastal forest of Brazil at 0-1000 m.

Bothriopsis medusa  (Sternfeld, 1920)
Venezuelan Forest Pitviper
Found in montane and cloud forest in northern Venezuela at 1400-2000+ m.

Bothriospis oligolepis  (Werner, 1901)
Inca Forest Pitviper
Found in cloud forest in Peru and Bolivia at 1000-2000+ m.

Bothriopsis peruviana  (Boulenger, 1903)
Peruvian Forest Pitviper
Found in montane forests in southeastern Peru (and presumably western Bolivia).

Bothriopsis pulchra  (Peters, 1862)
Andean Forest Pitviper
Found in montane forests of the eastern slopes of the Andes from southcentral Colombia to southern Ecuador at 500-3000+ m.
Note: Now includes B. albocarinata  (Shreve, 1934) and B. alticola  (Parker, 1934) (see McDiarmid et al., 1999).

Bothriopsis punctata (Garcia, 1896)
Chocoan Forest Pitviper
Found in forests in extreme eastern Panama and northwestern South America up to 2300 m.

Bothriopsis taeniata  (Wagler, 1824)
Speckled Forest Pitviper
Found in lowland rainforests in Amazonian South America at 0-1900 m.

 

Atheris  Cope, 1862
African Bush Vipers

Atheris acuminata  Broadley, 1998
Acuminate Bush Viper
Known only from a single specimen found in gallery forest in western Uganda at 950m.

Atheris broadleyi  Lawson, 1999
Broadley's Bush Viper
Found in forests in southern Cameroon and Central Africa Republic.

Atheris ceratophora  Werner, 1895
Horned Bush Viper
Found in montane forests in the Udzungwa and Usambara Mountains of western Tanzania at 1400 m.

Atheris chlorechis  (Pel, 1851)
Western Bush Viper
Found in lowland rainforests in West Africa at 0-560 m.

Atheris desaixi  Ashe, 1968
Mount Kenya Bush Viper
Found in montane forest on Mount Kenya at 1600 m.

Atheris hirsuta  Ernst & Rödel, 2002
Taï Hairy Bush Viper
Known only from the type-locality: about 6 km west of Station de Recherche en Ecologie Tropicale, Taï National Park, Ivory Coast (Cote de Ivoire)

Atheris hispida  Laurent, 1955
Bristly Bush Viper
Found in gallery forest in Democratic Republic of the Congo, southwestern Uganda, and western Kenya at 800-1900 m.

Atheris katangensis  Witte, 1953
Upemba Bush Viper
Known only from the gallery forest of Upemba National Park [Katanga Province], Democratic Republic of the Congo at 1250-1480 m.

Atheris nitschei   Tornier, 1902
Great Lakes Bush Viper
Found in swamps and montane forest in the northern Great Lakes region of Africa at 1600-2700 m.

Atheris rungweensis  (Bogert, 1940)
Rungwe Bush Viper
Found in gallery and montane forest in the southern Great Lakes region of Africa at 800-2000 m.

Atheris squamigera  (Hallowell, 1856)
Variable Bush Viper
Found in rainforests and other forests in Equatorial Africa (widespread) at 0-1900 m.

Trimeresurus  Lacépède, 1804
Asian Tree [or Bamboo] Pitvipers

Trimeresurus albolabris  Gray, 1842
White-lipped Tree Pitviper
Found in the forests of northern India, southeast Asia including southern China and Hong Kong, West Malaysia, and Indonesia at 0-1200+ m.

Trimeresurus borneensis  (Peters, 1872)
Bornean [or Leaf-nosed] Tree Pitviper
Found in the forests of Borneo at 0-1200+ m.
Note: There is disagreement as to whether some specimens from Sumatra should be assigned to this species.

Trimeresurus fasciatus  (Boulenger, 1896)
Banded Tree Pitviper
Found in Djampea, Indonesia.

Trimeresurus flavomaculatus  (Gray, 1842)
Philippine Tree Pitviper
Found in the Philippines.

Trimeresurus gramineus  (Shaw, 1802)
Indian Tree Pitviper
Found in southern India.

Trimeresurus hageni  (Lidth de Jende, 1886)
Hagen's Tree Pitviper
Found in lowland tropical forest and swamps often in hilly country in Thailand, West Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia at 0-1000 m.

Trimeresurus kanburiensis  Smith, 1943
Kanburi Tree Pitviper

Trimeresurus popeorum  Smith, 1937
Pope's Tree Pitviper
Found in hilly wet forest in northeastern India, Myanmar [Burma], Thailand, Western Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia at 0-2000 m.
Note: Smith's 1937 description of this species refers to it as "popeiorum", but a footnote in his 1943 paper declares this spelling a clerical error and the correct spelling to be "popeorum". However, David & Vogel (1996) noted that according to rules of the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature the earlier misspelling is the valid name and used "popeiorum". Still, McDiarmid et al. (1999) used "popeorum" and commented on the original clerical error, but not on David & Vogel's statement regarding ICZN rules.

Trimeresurus puniceus  (Kuhl, 1824)
Flat-nosed Tree Pitviper
Found in tropical wet forests, tropical and subtropical wet montane forest, bamboo forests, and plantations and other cultivated areas in southern Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia at 500-1500 m.

Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus  (Gray, 1832)
Purple-spotted Mangrove Pitviper
Found in mangrove and coastal swamps, lowland tropical wet forests, swamps, and marches and vegetation bordering river banks, canals, seashores, and beaches in India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, West Malaysia, Singapore, and Sumatra.

Trimeresurus stejnegeri  Schmidt, 1925
Stejneger's Tree Pitviper

Trimeresurus sumatranus  (Raffles, 1822)
Sumatran Tree Pitviper
Found in lowland tropical wet forests, mangrove swamps, and cultivated areas including coffee and tea plantations in southern Thailand, Malaysia, and Sumatra at 0-1000 m.

Trimeresurus trigonocephalus  (Donndorff, 1798)
Sri Lankan Tree Pitviper
Found throughout Sri Lanka at 0-1800 m.

 

Tropidolaemus  Wagler, 1830
Temple Pitvipers

Tropidolaemus huttoni  Smith, 1949
Hutton's Temple Pitviper
Known only from the type-locality at Madura district, southern India.

Tropidolaemus wagleri  (Boie, 1827)
Wagler's Temple Pitviper
Found in lowland tropical wet forests, wet montane forests, swamps, marshes, and other areas usually in the vicinity of water at 0-1300 m.
Note: There is disagreement regarding the author of this species (see McDiarmid et al., 1999).

References

Broadley, D.G. 1998.
   A review of the genus Atheris, with the description of a new species from Uganda.
   Herp. Jour. 8: 117-133.

Campbell, J.A. & W.W. Lamar. 1989.
    The Venomous Reptiles of Latin America.
    Comstock Publishing Associates, Cornell University Press, Ithaca.

David, P. & Vogel. 1996.
    The Snakes of Sumatra.
    Edition Chimaira.

Lawson, D.P. 1999.
    A new species of arboreal viper (Serpentes: Viperidae: Atheris) from Cameroon, Africa.
    Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington. 112(4): 793 - 803.

McDiarmid, R.W., J.A. Campbell, & T. Touré. 1999.
    Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference. Vol. 1.
    The Herpetologists’ League, Washington, D.C.