Trimeresurus flavomaculatus also known as the Philippine pit viperGumprecht A, Tillack F, Orlov NL, Captain A, Ryabov S. 2004. Asian Pit vipers. GeitjeBooks. Berlin. 1st Edition. 368 pp. . is a venomous pit viper species endemic to the Philippines. Two subspecies are currently recognized, including the nominate subspecies described here.
Description According to Leviton (1964), the scalation includes 21 rows of dorsal scales at midbody, 170–178/175–184 ventral scales in males/females, 62–71/58–63 subcaudal scales in males/females, and 9–11 supralabial scales of which the 3rd is the largest. Toriba and Sawai (1990) give 167–179/172–184 ventral scales in males/females, 56–70/53–63 subcaudal scales in males/females, and 9–10/9–12 supralabial scales in males/females.
Geographic range Found on the Philippine islands of Agutayan, Batan, Camiguin, Catanduanes, Dinagat, Jolo, Leyte, Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros, Panay and Polillo. The type locality given is "Philippine Islands". Leviton (1964) proposed that this be restricted to "Luzon Island".
Subspecies SubspeciesTaxon authorCommon nameGeographic rangeT. f. flavomaculatus(Gray, 1842)Philippine pit viperPhilippine islands of Agutayan, Bohol, Camiguin, Catanduanes, Dinagat, Jolo, Leyte, Luzon, Mindanao, Mindoro, Negros and Panay.T. f. halieusGriffin, 1910The Philippines on the island of Polillo.
Taxonomy Gumprecht (2001, 2002) relegates T. f. halieus to synonymy and elevates T. f. mcgregori to a full species.
References
Further reading Gray, J.E. 1842. Synopsis of the species of Rattle-Snakes, or Family of CROTALIDAE. Zoological Miscellany 2: 47–51. ("Magæra flavomaculatus", p. 49.) Leviton, A.E. 1964. Contributions to a review of Philippine snakes, V. The snakes of the genus Trimeresurus. Philippine Journal of Science 93: 251–276.
External links
Parias (Trimeresurus) flavomaculatus images at Calphotos. Accessed 6 December 2007.