Sri Lankan green pit viper

Trimeresurus trigonocephalus

Description:

Sri Lankan green pit viper, is a moderately venomous pit viper species endemic to Sri Lanka.It is a sexually dimorphic, mid-sized, cylindrical species.The neck is distinct from the flattened, triangular head. There is a loreal pit on each side of the head. Mid-sized eyes and a short, rounded, broad snout are present. The males are considerably smaller than females. The ground color of the snake is variable and cryptic. Typically, it is a green snake with a black variegated pattern, and a black temporal line is usually present. The wet zone snakes have these black patterns more clearly marked. The vertebral area has a tinge of yellow. The tail is black. The ventral scales are light greenish-yellow or may even be grey. Some snakes have only the black temporal line and the black tail, with the rest of the body being green. In addition, males tend to have a blue coloration, whereas the females are predominantly green. These are bulky snakes with prehensile, short tails, suiting their arboreal lifestyle.viviparous & About five to 25 young are produced at once.Details from-(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimeresurus_trigonocephalus)

Habitat:

It is arboreal and nocturnal, occasionally descending to the ground in search of food such as lizards, frogs, small mammals, and birds. This sluggish pit viper is usually encountered on low shrubs during morning hours, but it mostly occupies in grasslands and rain forests. In mornings, it is seen to stay on top of trees to obtain sun rays to heat its body.

Notes:

This Green pit viper was found at Gannoruwa rain forest,Kandy cp,Sri Lanka.

Species ID Suggestions

11 Comments

maplemoth662 6 years ago

Two, beautiful photos....

lhankin 9 years ago

Thank you! Your photo will be highlighted on Friday, October 10. Afterwards, you’ll be able to see your photo for about a month in the Pic of the Day Collection (www.greatnatureproject.org/collections/1...). Thanks again for contributing to The Great Nature Project!

Dilan Chathuranga 9 years ago

Wow!!It is a really good news!!!Thank you very much lhankin!!!!

lhankin 9 years ago

Congratulations! We would like to highlight this photo as National Geographic’s Great Nature Project Pic of the Day! It will be featured in the lower left corner on The Great Nature Project website, as well as on NG Education Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ accounts.

We will attribute this photo to you by using your username, Dilan Chathuranga. Once we hear back from you (either here or via email to GreatNatureProject@ngs.org), we’ll let you know which date we’ll highlight your photo. Please respond within 72 hours to let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If we don’t hear from you by then, we’ll assume everything is okay and we’ll share your image. Thank you for sharing your observations with The Great Nature Project!

Dilan Chathuranga 9 years ago

This spotting has been selected as PN Fun Fact(yesterday).Thank you very much PN community for that!!!
Project Noah Fun Fact: Used to be we distinguished snakes and other animals as poisonous or not. But current research distinguishes between a poison and a venom. A venom is something that is injected usually with teeth, spines or stingers, whereas poisons are absorbed or ingested. A good rule of thumb is: if you bite it and you die, it is poisonous; if it bites you and you die, it is venomous.
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