Viperidae - Crotalinae - 2004 Publications
 

Crotalus tancitarensis

Alvarado-Díaz  & Campbell (2004) described a new species of small montane rattlesnake from Cerro Tancítaro, Michoacán, México: Crotalus tancitarensis. The new species is part of the C. intermedius group, and as such closely related to species such as C. triseriatus, C. pricei and C. transversus. It is most similar to C. transversus, from which it differs in having more dorsal crossbands ( 49–51 vs. 37–43) and fewer ventrals (less than 155 vs. 158-160 in females). The new species is known from 3 specimens collected at altitudes of between 1500 m and 3250 m. The longest measured 41 cm in total length. Crotalus triseriatus and C. pusillus occur in the same area, the latter at lower altitudes.

 

Redescription and phylogenetic position of Trimeresurus cornutus

Herrmann et al. (2004) provide a redescription, review and phylogenetic assessment of the enigmatic pitviper Trimeresurus cornutus, based partly on the first find of a live specimen in Quang Binh Province, Central Vietnam. Phylogenetic analysis of several mitochondrial genes shows that this species is the sister species of Protobothrops jerdonii. Consequently, the authors support its reclassification as Protobothrops cornutus. The species has now been recorded form the extreme northern Vietnam (near the Chinese border), and two localities in Central Vietnam, in Quang Binh and Hue provinces.

 

Zhaoermia as a replacement name for Ermia


Gumprecht & Tillack (2004) note that the generic name Ermia, erected by Zhang (1993) for the species previously known as Trimeresurus mangshanensis, is preoccupied by a genus of locusts (Ermia Popov 1958), and therefore not available for the Mangshan pitviper. Gumprecht and Tillack therefore propose the new generic name Zhaoermia as a replacement name for Ermia. Like the original genus name, it honours the eminent  Chinese herpetologist  Zhao Ermi. The Mangshan pitviper should therefore be referred to as Zhaoermia mangshanensis.



Bothrops neuwiedi complex - Neuwied's lancehead

 

From left to right: Bothrops neuwiedi (Poços de Caldas, Minas Gerais), Bothrops matogrossensis (Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul) and Bothrops pauloensis (São Paulo State)


The Bothrops neuwiedi complex was hitherto regarded as a single species, B. neuwiedi, with 12 highly variable and often poorly defined subspecies. Silva (2004, in Campbell & Lamar, 2004) presented the conclusions of his unpublished PhD thesis (Silva, 2000), based on the analysis of multiple morphological characters, in which Bothrops neuwiedi was found to consist of seven species. These are given in the table below (all data from Silva, 2004)

New name

Older subspecies names

Distribution

Distinguishing characteristics

Bothrops neuwiedi

B. n. neuwiedi, B. n. urutu, B. n. meridionalis, B. n. goyazensis, B. n. paranaensis

Southeastern Brazil, from northern Rio Grande do Sul to northern Minas Gerais, isolated populations in parts of Bahia and northern Goiás

Supralabials black with large, round, white central spot, two postcephalic stripes extend from top of head onto neck

Bothrops diporus

B. n. diporus

Southern Brazil (W. Paraná, W. Santa Catarina, NW. Rio Grande do Sul), southern Paraguay, northern Argentina

Supralabials light or with large dark blotches covering more than half of each scale, especially anterior supralabials, two postcephalic stripes extend from top of head onto neck.

Bothrops lutzi

B. iglesiasi, B. n. lutzi, B. n. piauhyensis

Eastern Brazil (northern Minas Gerais, western Bahia, eastern Goiás and Tocantins, Piauí, isolated populations in eastern Bahia and possibly São Paulo)

Body pattern indistinct, keels of some dorsal scales white and distinct from ground colour, small, vertically elongate whitish spots on brownish supralabials.

Bothrops mattogrossensis

B. n. mattogrossensis, B. n. bolivianus

Central-western Brazil (São Paulo, Goiás  and Tocantins west to Rondônia and Humaitá, central and northern Paraguay, Bolivia east of the Andes and south of the Amazonian forests, isolated population in extreme SE. Peru (Sandia, Puno, Peru)

Supralabials uniformly light or with large brown blotches covering more than half of surface. Normally no postcephalic stripes from head onto neck. Body blotches usually distinct and edged in white

Bothrops pauloensis

B. n. pauloensis

Central Brazil (Goiás, western Minas Gerais, São Paulo, southern Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, northern Paraná) and adjoining Paraguay

Sides of head often densely stippled with black pigment, almost entirely melanic; no postcephalic stripes onto neck

Bothrops pubescens

B. n. pubescens

Uruguay, southern Brazil (Central and southern Rio Grande do Sul)

Supralabials light, with more or less obvious, dark triangular marks over sutures. postcephalic stripes relatively small.

Bothrops sp.
(undescribed species, to be described by Silva)

 

Central Brazil (Minas Gerais, Goiás, Tocantins)

Sometimes some light dorsal scale keels; supralabials uniformly finely stippled, no larger marks; body blotches diffuse.

 



Crotalus durissus complex - Neotropical rattlesnake


"Crotalus simus tzabcan" - Belize                        "Crotalus durissus durissus" - Guyana  


Campbell & Lamar (2004) split Crotalus durissus into three species. The populations from Tamaulipas and adjoining parts of NE Mexico were recognised as a full species, Crotalus totonacus. For the remainder of the complex, Campbell & Lamar split the Central American and South American members of the complex into separate species. Based on historical evidence, they consider the likely type locality of Linnaeus's durissus to have been the Guyanan region of South America, not Mexico, and they reject Smith & Taylor's restriction of the type locality to Jalapa, Veracruz, Mexico. In consequence, all the South American forms of the complex treated as subspecies of Crotalus durissus, and the populations from coastal Guyana, Suriname and French Guyana, formerly known as C. durissus dryinas, become C. durissus durissus. The oldest available name for the Central American populations is Crotalus simus Latreille 1801, so that all C. American populations are treated as subspecies of C. simus. Those formerly treated as C. durissus durissus are now treated as C. simus simus. As in their previous book, Venomous reptiles of Latin America, the taxa vegrandis and unicolor are treated as subspecies of durissus, which reflects their phylogenetic position within the C. durissus complex (Wüster et al., 2002).



Lachesis - bushmasters

Lachesis muta - E. Ecuador
Lachesis muta - Morona Santiago Prov., Ecuador


Campbell & Lamar  (2004)  recognise the Chocoan bushmaster from eastern Panama and the northwestern parts of South America (W. Colombia including Magdalena and Cauca Valleys and the forests of Chocó) and NW Ecuador as a distinctive species, Lachesis acrochorda (García, 1896). The distinctive nature of these populations had previously been flagged by Ripa (1994, 2001), but they were regarded as part of Lachesis stenophrys by Campbell & Lamar (1989) (with reservations) and regarded as problematic by Zamudio & Greene (1997), who were unable to include any specimens in their phylogeographic analysis of the genus. The four species of bushmaster currently recognised are thus: Lachesis muta, from the Amazon Basin, the Guianas and the Brazilian Atlantic forest; Lachesis melanocephala, from the southern Pacific versant of Costa Rica; Lachesis acrochorda, from NW South America, and Lachesis stenophrys, from the Atlantic versant of Costa Rica, western Panama and southern Nicaragua.

 

Porthidium - Hognosed pitvipers

Campbell & Lamar (2004) recognise the Manabi hognosed pitviper, previously described as Porthidium lansbergii arcosae, as a separate species, Porthidium arcosae. The species is restricted to dry forests on the western coast of Ecuador.


Reclassification of the Asiatic pivipers (Trimeresurus group)


Malhotra & Thorpe (2004) used phylogenetic analysis of four mitochondrial genes to analyse the phylogeny of  the Asian pitvipers. Their analyses, supported by additional evidence from hemipenial morphology and aspects of scalation, defined a number of well-defined species groups, particularly within Trimeresurus sensu lato. On this basis, the genus Trimeresurus was split into 7 genera. The genus Trimeresurus  now contains solely the species from the Indian subcontinent as well as the T. puniceus group. Malhotra & Thorpe resurrected the genus Parias Gray, 1849 for the Indomalayan sumatranus-hageni group, Cryptelytrops Cope, 1860 for the albolabris group, Peltopelor Gunther, 1864 for the species macrolepis, and describe the new genera Viridovipera for the stejnegeri group, Popeiapopeiorum complex, and Himalayophis for the species tibetanus. The Table below shows the allocation of the species previously included in TrimeresurusOvophis chaseni was found to be unrelated to other Ovophis, and Malhotra and Thorpe named the new genus Garthius to accommodate this species. Trimeresurus gracilis was shown to be the sister group of what is currently referred to as Ovophis okinavensis, but  these two are not closely related to O. monticola. The nomenclature of these taxa requires further clarification.

Table 1. Classification of the species previously assigned to Trimeresurus according to Malhotra & Thorpe (2004). Trimeresurus gracilis remains unassigned.

 

Trimeresurus

Parias

Cryptelytrops

Peltopelor

Viridovipera

Popeia

Himalayophis

Protobothrops

borneensis
brongersmai
gramineus
malabaricus
puniceus
strigatus
trigonocephalus

flavomaculatus
hageni
malcolmi
mcgregori
schultzei
sumatranus

albolabris
andersonii
cantori
erythrurus
fasciatus
insularis
kanburiensis
labialis
macrops
purpureomaculatus
septentrionalis
venustus

macrolepis

gumprechti
medoensis
stejnegeri
vogeli
yunnanensis

popeiorum

tibetanus

cornutus
xiangchengensis

(+ the other species conventionally classified within this genus)

 

 

Trimeresurus venustus and T. kanburiensis


Malhotra & Thorpe (2004a) and David et al. (2004) analysed the affinities of the pitviper Trimeresurus venustus Vogel 1991. The species was described from southern Thailand, but some authors (e.g., Warrell et al., 1992; McDiarmid et al., 1999) considered it conspecific with T. kanburiensis, a species described from the Kanchanaburi area of western Thailand, and known only from a handful of specimens. Malhotra & Thorpe (2004a) used multivariate morphometrics and comparative mtDNA sequencing to demonstrate that T. venustus is clearly distinct from T. kanburiensis, and is in fact more closely related to T. macrops than  to T. kanburiensis.  The main distinguishing characters include the less saturated coloration of T. kanburiensis and ventral colouration (white or cream in T. kanburiensis, green in T. venustus, as well as subtle but not categorically distinctive aspects of scalation and body proportions. David et al. (2004) used morphological comparisons and found 14 characters differentiating the two taxa, again also substantiating the validity of T. venustus. Under the reclassification of the Trimeresurus complex proposed by Malhotra & Thorpe (2004b, see above), T. kanburiensis and T. venustus are assigned to the genus Cryptelytrops.

 

Trimeresurus truongsonensis


Orlov et al. (2004) described a new species of Trimeresurus from limestone karst habitats in the Phong Nha - Ke Bang National Park in Quang Binh Province, central Vietnam. The new species resembles Trimeresurus kanburiensis and T. venustus (assigned to Cryptelytrops by Malhotra & Thorpe 2004 - see above) in pattern, but has a short, spinose hemipenis more reminiscent of species such as T. stejnegeri, assigned to Viridovipera by Malhotra & Thorpe (2004). Orlov et al. retain the species in the genus Trimeresurus due to stated difficulties in assigning the new species to one or other of the genera described or revalidated by Malhotra & Thorpe (2004).


Trimeresurus fucatus, T. nebularis and Popeia inornata

Vogel et al. (2004) analysed morphological variation in Trimeresurus popeiorum. The subspecies T. p. sabahi from Borneo and T. p. barati from Sumatra were found to constitute separate species. In addition, the authors describe two new species: Trimeresurus fucatus is described from southern Thailand, southern Myanmar (Burma) and much of Peninsular Malaysia, and Trimeresurus nebularis from the Cameron Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia. Trimeresurus fucatus most obviously differs from T. popeiorum in having greenish eyes (vs. red), and in the males having conspicuous transverse crossbars. Trimeresurus nebularis differs from T. popeiorum in lacking red eyes, and from T. fucatus in lacking dorsal crossbands (males) and a ventrolateral white stripe (females) as well as tail pattern. Additional pattern and scalation differences separate some of the taxa in this group from each other. Shortly after the Vogel et al. (2004) paper appeared, another group published another description of the Cameron Highlands "T. popeiorum" (Sanders et al., 2004), as Popeia inornata. The second paper  provides additional new information on this form, including information on mtDNA sequence differences. The Principle of Priority of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature dictates that the name Trimeresurus nebularis has priority over Popeia inornata, turning the latter into a synonym of the former.  




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