Pit Vipers of Asia – A Few of the Eye Candies That Won’t Kill You

Many Kiwis, Hawaiians, and Europeans who recently moved to Asia like to tell me how wonderful Asia is and how much they love living in Asia. But there is this one specific nightmare that is bothering them – snakes.

I say it’s fair enough to have snakes here. As the largest continent on earth and being warm and bushy, why would you not think there would be snakes in here? Not trying to scare you but I can easily name some venomous snakes in Asia – King cobra and many other cobras, kraits, coral snakes, sea snakes, Russell’s viper, and saw-scaled viper – all deadly. If you believe bright-colored snakes are more dangerous then I have to tell you, no. Most of the deadly snakes I mentioned are in dull colors from brown, gray to black. Ironically, the bright-colored venomous snakes in Asia are usually not deadly, such as the Asian pit vipers of the genus Trimeresurus. Here are a few I have encountered:

Most of the species are bright green like this:

Bamboo pit viper (Trimeresurus albolabris)

An unusual one can be blue like this:

Komodo Island pit viper (Trimeresurus insularis)

There are also a few exceptional dark ones like this:

Mangrove pit viper (Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus)

Posted

in

,

by

Tags: