You are here » home › advanced search › search results › Bothriechis nigroviridis

Bothriechis nigroviridis PETERS, 1859

IUCN Red List - Bothriechis nigroviridis - Least Concern, LC
iNaturalist logo

Can you confirm these amateur observations of Bothriechis nigroviridis?

Add your own observation of
Bothriechis nigroviridis »

Find more photos by Google images search: Google images

Higher TaxaViperidae, Crotalinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Black-speckled Palm Pit Viper
G: Schwarzgelbe Palmenlanzenotter 
SynonymBothriechis nigroviridis PETERS 1859: 278
Bothrops (Bothriechis) nigroviridis — MÜLLER 1878: 401
Bothrops nigroviridis nigroviridis — BARBOUR & LOVERIDGE 1929
Trimeresurus nigroviridis marchi — ROKOSKY 1942
Trimeresurus nigroviridis — POPE 1955
Bothrops rowleyi — BOGERT 1968
Bothrops nigroviridis — PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970: 51
Bothrops nigroviridis nigroviridis — PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970: 52
Bothrops marchi — WILSON & MEYER 1985
Bothrops nigroviridis — VILLA et al. 1988
Bothriechis nigroviridis — WELCH 1994: 29
Bothriechis nigroviridis — MCDIARMID, CAMPBELL & TOURÉ 1999: 245
Bothriechis nigroviridis — MATTISON 2007: 222
Bothriechis nigroviridis — WALLACH et al. 2014: 108 
DistributionCosta Rica, W Panama

elevation up to 3000 m.

Type locality: Volcán Barba, Costa Rica.  
Reproductionovoviviparous 
TypesSyntypes: ZMB 2986-2988. 
DiagnosisUnfortunately we had to temporarily remove additional information as this was scraped by multiple AI companies who sell that data to their customers. These details, e.g. detailed descriptions or comparisons (about 1284 characters), are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. 
CommentVenomous!

Similar species: B. nubestris.

Illustrations: Color plate 88 in VILLA et al. 1988 and cover of LILLYWHITE 1987.

Synonymy partly after PETERS & OREJAS-MIRANDA 1970. Not listed in LINER 1994.

Subspecies: The subspecies Bothriechis nigroviridis aurifer and B. nigroviridis marchi have been elevated to full species status. Not listed for Honduras by WILSON & MCCRANIE (2002).

Phylogenomics: see Mason et al. 2019 for a phylogenomic analysis of the genus.

Habitat: forests, fully arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018)

Type species: Bothriechis nigroviridis PETERS 1859: 278 is the type species of the genus Bothriechis PETERS 1859. 
EtymologyNamed after Latin niger, nigra, nigrum = black or dark, and viridis = green, referring to the color of the species (even though it is often rather yellow than green).

The genus was named after Greek bothros (βόθρος), any pit or hole + echi[dna] (έχιδνα), an adder, viper. ["...Eine Gattung, die zwischen Bothrops und Atropos steht, mit jener durch das grosse Supraorbitalschild, mit dieser durch h die Grösse, Lage und Begrenzung der Thränengruben, durch den Mangel der Kiele an den Schuppen des Vorderkopfes übereinstimmt...“]. 
References
  • Barbour,T. & LOVERIDGE,A. 1929. On some Hondurian and Guatemalan snakes with the description of a new arboreal pit viper of the genus Bothrops. Bull. Antivenin Inst. America 3: 1-3
  • Bogert,C.M. 1968. A new arboreal pit viper of the genus Bothrops from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, México. American Museum Novitates 2341: 1-14 - get paper here
  • Campbell, J.A. & Lamar, W.W. 1989. The Venomous Reptiles of Latin America. Comstock Publishing/Cornell University Press, Ithaca
  • Cundall, D. 2009. Viper Fangs: Functional Limitations of Extreme Teeth. Physiological and Biochemical Zoology: Ecological and Evolutionary Approaches, 82(1), 63–79 - get paper here
  • DOAN, TIFFANY M.; ANDREW J. MASON, TODD A. CASTOE, MAHMOOD SASA & CHRISTOPHER L. PARKINSON 2016. A cryptic palm-pitviper species (Squamata: Viperidae: Bothriechis) from the Costa Rican highlands, with notes on the variation within B. nigroviridis. Zootaxa 4138 (2): 271–290 - get paper here
  • García-Padilla E, DeSantis DL, Rocha A, Mata-Silva V, Johnson JD, Wilson LD. 2020. Conserving the Mesoamerican herpetofauna: the most critical case of the priority level one endemic species. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 14(2) [General Section]: 73–132 (e240) - get paper here
  • Harrington, Sean M; Jordyn M de Haan, Lindsey Shapiro, Sara Ruane 2018. Habits and characteristics of arboreal snakes worldwide: arboreality constrains body size but does not affect lineage diversification. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 125 (1): 61–71 - get paper here
  • Köhler, G. 2008. Reptiles of Central America. 2nd Ed. Herpeton-Verlag, 400 pp.
  • Lillywhite, H. B. 1987. Snakes under pressure. Nat. Hist. 96 (11): 58-67. - get paper here
  • Liner, E.A. 1994. Scientific and common names for the Amphibians and Reptiles of Mexico in English and Spanish. Herpetological Circular 23: 1-113
  • Mason AJ; Grazziotin F; Zaher H; Lemmon A; Moriarty Lemmon E & Parkinson C 2019. Reticulate evolution in nuclear Middle America causes discordance in the phylogeny of palm-pitvipers (Viperidae: Bothriechis). Journal of Biogeography 46 (5): 833-844 - get paper here
  • Mata-Silva, V, DeSantis DL, García-Padilla E, Johnson JD, Wilson LD. 2019. The endemic herpetofauna of Central America: a casualty of anthropocentrism. Amphibian & Reptile Conservation 13 (1) [General Section]: 1–64 (e168) - get paper here
  • Mattison, Chris 2007. The New Encyclopedia of Snakes. Princeton University Press
  • McCranie J R 2011. The snakes of Honduras. SSAR, Salt Lake City, 725 pp.
  • McDiarmid, R.W.; Campbell, J.A. & Touré,T.A. 1999. Snake species of the world. Vol. 1. [type catalogue] Herpetologists’ League, 511 pp.
  • Müller, F. 1878. Über einige seltene und neue Reptilien aus Guatemala. Verh. Naturf. Ges. Basel, 6: 390-411 - get paper here
  • O’Shea, M. 2018. The Book of Snakes. Ivy Press / Quarto Publishing, London, - get paper here
  • Parkinson,C.L. 1999. Molecular systematics and biogeographical history of pitvipers as determined by mitochondrial ribosomal DNA sequences. Copeia 1999 (3): 576-586 - get paper here
  • Peters, James A.; Donoso-Barros, Roberto & Orejas-Miranda, Braulio 1970. Catalogue of the Neotropical Squamata: Part I Snakes. Bull. US Natl. Mus. 297: 347 pp. - get paper here
  • Peters,W. 1859. Über die von Hrn. Dr. Hoffmann in Costa Rica gesammelten und an das Königl. Zoologische Museum gesandten Schlangen. Monatsber. Königl. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin 1859: 275-278 - get paper here
  • Porras, L.W. & Solórzano, A. 2006. Die Schlangen Costa Ricas. Reptilia (Münster) 11 (61): 20-27 - get paper here
  • Porras, L.W. & Solórzano, A. 2006. Costa Rica’s venomous snakes. Reptilia (GB) (48): 11-17 - get paper here
  • Salvin,O. 1860. On the reptiles of Guatemala. Proc. zool. Soc. London 1860: 451-461 - get paper here
  • Sasa, M., Arias, E., & Chaves, G. 2025. Annotated list of amphibians and reptiles of Costa Rica: The role of the Museum of Zoology in cataloging the country’s herpetological diversity. Revista de Biología Tropical, 73(S2): e64536-e64536 - get paper here
  • Savage, J.M. 2002. The Amphibians and Reptiles of Costa Rica: A Herpetofauna Between Two Continents, Between Two Seas. University of Chicago Press, 934 pp. [review in Copeia 2003 (1): 205]
  • Smith, Hobart M.; Moll, Edward O. 1969. A taxonomic rearrangement of the pit vipers of the Bothrops nigroviridis complex of southern Mexico. Journal of Herpetology 3 (3-4): 151-155 - get paper here
  • Solorzano, A. 2004. Serpientes de Costa Rica - Snakes of Costa Rica. Editorial INBio, Costa Rica, 792 pp.
  • Wallach, Van; Kenneth L. Williams , Jeff Boundy 2014. Snakes of the World: A Catalogue of Living and Extinct Species. [type catalogue] Taylor and Francis, CRC Press, 1237 pp.
 
External links  
Is it interesting? Share with others:

As link to this species use URL address:

https://reptile-database.reptarium.cz/species?genus=Bothriechis&species=nigroviridis

without field 'search_param'. Field 'search_param' is used for browsing search result.



Please submit feedback about this entry to the curator