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Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus (GRAY, 1832)

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Higher TaxaViperidae, Crotalinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes)
Subspecies 
Common NamesE: Shore Pit Viper, Mangrove Viper
G: Mangrovenotter 
SynonymTrigonocephalus purpureo-maculatus GRAY in GRAY & HARDWICKE 1832: pl 81
Trimesurus purpureus GRAY 1842
Trimesurus purpureus — GRAY 1849
Trimeresurus puniceus (nec Cophias punicea BOIE 1827) — CANTOR 1847
Trimeresurus porphyraceus BLYTH 1861
Trimeresurus porphyraceus — THEOBALD 1868
Trimeresurus porphyraceus —STOLICZKA 1870
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus — BOULENGER 1890
Lachesis purpureomaculatus — BOULENGER 1896
Lachesis purpureomaculatus — WALL 1908: 784
Lachesis purpureomaculatus — DE ROOIJ 1917: 284
Trimeresurus acutimentalis WERNER 1927: 257
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus purpureomaculatus — SMITH 1943: 520
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus purpureomaculatus — WELCH 1994: 117
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus — MANTHEY & GROSSMANN 1997: 410
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus — COX et al. 1998: 23
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus — MCDIARMID, CAMPBELL & TOURÉ 1999: 342
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus — GUMPRECHT et al. 2004
Cryptelytrops purpureomaculatus — MALHOTRA & THORPE 2004
Trimeresurus (Trimeresurus) purpureomaculatus — DAVID et al. 2011
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus — WALLACH et al. 2014: 742
Cryptelytrops purpureomaculatus — CHAN-ARD et al. 2015: 285
Trimeresurus (Trimeresurus) purpureomaculatus— MIRZA et al. 2023 
DistributionBangladesh, Burma, S Thailand,
W Malaysia, Indonesia (Sumatra)

David & Vogel (1996):
Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus purpureomaculatus: Indonesia (Sumatra); Malaysia (Malaya); Myanmar; Singapore; Thailand.

Type locality: “Singapura”  
Reproductionovovivparous 
TypesHolotype: BMNH 1946.1.19.54 
DiagnosisDIAGNOSIS (DIAGNOSTIC CHARACTERS). Scales in 25–27 longitudinal rows at midbody; 11–13 upper labials, the first partially or completely united with the nasal; supraocular very narrow, sometimes broken into small scales, 12–15 scales between them; head scales small, subequal, tuberculate or granular; temporal scales keeled; body color highly variable, above olive, grayish, to dark purplish brown, below whitish, greenish or brown, uniform or spotted with brown; a light line on scale row one bordering ventrals present or absent; head olive, heavily suffused with brown; ventrals: males 160–179, females 168–183; subcaudals: males 74–76, females 56–63, paired; hemipenes without spines.
Total length males 665 mm, females 900; tail length males 125 mm, females 140 mm. [after LEVITON 2003] 
CommentVenomous!

Subspecies: Trimeresurus andersonii has been treated previously as a subspecies of Trimeresurus purpureomaculatus. See comment on T. andersonii.

Distribution: Has been reported from the Nicobar and Andaman Islands although no voucher specimen seem to exist according to DAS 1999. Not in (continental) India fide I. Das (pers. comm., 22 Dec 2011).

Type species: Cryptelytrops purpureomaculatus is the type species of the genus Cryptelytrops COPE 1860.

Habitat: partly arboreal (Harrington et al. 2018).

Phylogenetics: T. erythrurus and T. purpureomaculatus are paraphyletic in the tree of Chen et al. 2020. T. purpureomaculatus falls into two clades separated by the isthmus of Kra in Thailand (Chan et al. 2022). 
References
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  • Chan-ard, T., Parr, J.W.K. & Nabhitabhata, J. 2015. A field guide to the reptiles of Thailand. Oxford University Press, NY, 352 pp. [see book reviews by Pauwels & Grismer 2015 and Hikida 2015 for corrections] - get paper here
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  • CHEN, ZENING; JIANPING YU, GERNOT VOGEL, SHENGCHAO SHI, ZHAOBIN SONG, YEZHONG TANG, JIA YANG, LI DING, CANGSONG CHEN 2020. A new pit viper of the genus Trimeresurus (Lacépède, 1804) (Squamata: Viperidae) from Southwest China. Zootaxa 4768 (1): 112–128 - get paper here
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