Common names: Wagler's pit viper, temple viper, temple pit viper, more.

Tropidolaemus wagleri is a venomous

Venomous snake

"Poisonous snake" redirects here. For true poisonous snakes, see Rhabdophis.Venomous snakes are snakes which have venom glands and specialized teeth for the injection of venom...

 pitviper

Crotalinae

The Crotalinae, commonly known as "pit vipers" or crotaline snakes, are a subfamily of venomous vipers found in Asia and the Americas. They are distinguished by the presence of a heat-sensing pit organ located between the eye and the nostril on either side of the head...

 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 native to southeast Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. The epithet, wagleri, is in honor of German

Germans

The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

 herpetologist Johann Georg Wagler

Johann Georg Wagler

Johann Georg Wagler was a German herpetologist.Wagler was assistant to Johann Baptist von Spix, and became Director of the Zoological Museum at the University of Munich after Spix's death in 1826...

. No subspecies are currently recognized. It is sometimes referred to as the temple viper because of its abundance around the Temple of the Azure Cloud

Snake Temple

The Snake Temple is situated in Sungai Kluang, Bayan Lepas, Penang, Malaysia and is perhaps the only temple of its kind in the world. The temple is filled with the smoke of burning incense and a variety of pit vipers...

 in Malaysia.

Description

This species is sexually dimorphic: the females grow to approximately 1 m in length, while males typically do not exceed 75 cm. They have a large triangular shaped head, with a relatively thin body. Almost entirely arboreal, the tail is prehensile to aid in climbing.

They are found in a wide variety of colors and patterns, often referred to as "phases". In the past, some researchers classified the different phases as subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

. The phases vary greatly from having a black or brown coloration as a base, with orange and yellow banding to others having a light green as the base color, with yellow or orange banding, and many variations therein.

Common names

Wagler's pit viper, temple viper, temple pit viper, bamboo snake, temple snake, speckled pit viper, temple pitviper.

Geographic range

Found in southern Thailand

Thailand

Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...

 west Malaysia, in Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 on Sumatra

Sumatra

Sumatra is an island in western Indonesia, westernmost of the Sunda Islands. It is the largest island entirely in Indonesia , and the sixth largest island in the world at 473,481 km2 with a population of 50,365,538...

, the islands of the Riau Archipelago

Riau Archipelago

Not to be confused with Riau Islands Province, a province of Indonesia.The Riau Archipelago is the core group of islands within the Riau Islands Province in Indonesia, and located south of Singapore...

, Bangka

Bangka Island

Bangka is an island lying east of Sumatra, Indonesia. Population 626,955. Area: c.4,600 sq mi .There is an additional small island named Pulau Bangka in northern Sulawesi, Indonesia.-Geography:...

, Billiton

Belitung

Belitung, , is an island on the east coast of Sumatra, Indonesia in the Java Sea. The island is known for its pepper and for its tin. It was in the possession of the British from 1812 until the British ceded control of the island to the Dutch in the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824...

, Nias

Nias

Nīas is an island off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. Nias is also the name of the archipelago, containing the Hinako archipelago....

, the Mentawai Islands

Mentawai Islands

The Mentawai Islands are a chain of about seventy islands and islets off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. Siberut is the largest of the islands. The other major islands are Sipura, North Pagai and South Pagai . The islands lie approximately 150 km off the Sumatran coast, across the...

 (Siberut

Siberut

Siberut is the largest and northernmost of the Mentawai Islands, lying 150 kilometres west of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. A part of Indonesia, the island is the most important home for the Mentawai people. The western half of the island was set aside as the Siberut National Park in 1993...

), Natuna, Karimata, Borneo

Borneo

Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

 (Sabah

Sabah

Sabah is one of 13 member states of Malaysia. It is located on the northern portion of the island of Borneo. It is the second largest state in the country after Sarawak, which it borders on its southwest. It also shares a border with the province of East Kalimantan of Indonesia in the south...

, Sarawak

Sarawak

Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. Known as Bumi Kenyalang , Sarawak is situated on the north-west of the island. It is the largest state in Malaysia followed by Sabah, the second largest state located to the North- East.The administrative capital is Kuching, which...

 and Kalimantan

Kalimantan

In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....

), Sulawesi

Sulawesi

Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...

 and Buton

Buton

Buton , is an island in Indonesia located off the southeast peninsula of Sulawesi.-History:In the precolonial era, the island, then usually known as Butung, was within the sphere of influence of Ternate...

, and in the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 on the islands of Balabac

Balabac Island

Balabac Island is the southern-most island of the Palawan province in the Philippines, only about north from Sabah, Malaysia, across the Balabac Strait.Administratively, the island forms the main part of Balabac Municipality and is divided into 14 barangays:...

, Basilan

Basilan

The Province of Basilan is an island province of the Philippines within the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao . Basilan is the largest and northernmost of the major islands of the Sulu Archipelago and is located just off the southern coast of Zamboanga Peninsula...

, Bohol, Dinagat, Jolo, Leyte, Luzon

Luzon

Luzon is the largest island in the Philippines. It is located in the northernmost region of the archipelago, and is also the name for one of the three primary island groups in the country centered on the Island of Luzon...

, Mindanao

Mindanao

Mindanao is the second largest and easternmost island in the Philippines. It is also the name of one of the three island groups in the country, which consists of the island of Mindanao and smaller surrounding islands. The other two are Luzon and the Visayas. The island of Mindanao is called The...

, Negros, Palawan

Palawan

Palawan is an island province of the Philippines located in the MIMAROPA region or Region 4. Its capital is Puerto Princesa City, and it is the largest province in the country in terms of total area of jurisdiction. The islands of Palawan stretch from Mindoro in the northeast to Borneo in the...

, Samar and Tumindao. A type locality is not included in the original description, although Schlegel (1837) given "Sumatra".

Behavior

Nocturnal and arboreal, they appear quite sluggish as they remaining motionless for long periods of time waiting for prey to pass by. When prey does pass by, or if disturbed, they can strike quickly.

Feeding

Their primary diet

Diet (nutrition)

In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. With the word diet, it is often implied the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management...

 consists of rodent

Rodent

Rodentia is an order of mammals also known as rodents, characterised by two continuously growing incisors in the upper and lower jaws which must be kept short by gnawing....

s, bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s, and lizard

Lizard

Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with nearly 3800 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica as well as most oceanic island chains...

s. The pits on the sides of the head between the eyes and nostrils are capable of detecting temperature difference of as little as 0.003 degree Celsius.

Taxonomy

This species has undergone much taxonomic

Taxonomy

Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...

 reclassification over the years and was previously placed in the genus Trimeresurus

Trimeresurus

Trimeresurus is a genus of venomous pitvipers found in Asia from Pakistan, through India, China, throughout Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands. Currently 35 species are recognized...

. However, their distinctly different morphology

Comparative anatomy

Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of organisms. It is closely related to evolutionary biology and phylogeny .-Description:...

 and venom characteristics set them apart, so that eventually a new genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 was erected in which they were placed together with Hutton's viper, Tropidolaemus huttoni

Tropidolaemus huttoni

Tropidolaemus huttoni is a venomous pitviper species found in southern India. No subspecies are currently recognized. Its specific name is in honor of its discoverer, Angus Hutton, a planter and naturalist...

.

External links

• Ecology Asia page on Tropidolaemus wagleri. Accessed 1 March 2007.