Sabah Bamboo Pitviper

About the Sabah Bamboo Pitviper

Trimeresurus sabahi, commonly known as the Sabah pit viper or Sabah bamboo pitviper, is a venomous pitviper species. If defined narrowly, it is endemic to the island of Borneo. If defined more broadly, it consists of five subspecies found in Southeast Asia.

There are five subspecies: Trimeresurus sabahi barati Regenass & Kramer, 1981 – Sumatra, Mentawai Archipelago (Indonesia) T. s. buniana Grismer, Grismer & McGuire, 2006 – Tioman Island (Malaysia) T. s. fucatus Vogel, David & Pauwels, 2004 – Malay Peninsula (southern Myanmar, Thailand, West Malaysia)

T. s. sabahi Regenass & Kramer, 1981 – northern Borneo (Malaysia) T. s. toba David, Petri, Vogel & Doria, 2009 – Sumatra IUCN treats these as full species, respectively T. barati, T. buniana, T. fucatus, and T. toba, restricting T. sabahi to the nominotypical subspecies.

Adults may attain a snout-vent length (SVL) of 62 cm (24 in). Dorsally, it is uniform green, without crossbars. Ventrally it is pale green. There is narrow bicolor stripe on the first one and a half dorsal scale rows. In males this stripe is rust-colored or red below, and it is white above. In females it is yellow or white. The iris... Wikipedia →