The Trimeresurus wiroti, commonly known as Wirot’s Pit Viper, or Wirot’s Palm Pit Viper, is a rarely encountered species. It ranges on the lower half of the Thai peninsula, a region that sees a fair number of herpers, but yet sightings are almost unheard of.
With such amazing camouflage, and likely a fairly inactive life style, possibly spending time high up in trees (the books report record(s) at 20m high in the canopy.), it is not surprising that so few people seem to get lucky with this species.
| Dangerous? | Dangerous; front-fanged, foldable hollow fangs, potent venom; these snakes rely on their camouflage so are not likely to flee. Which means, in the unfortunate case you don’t see it, but unknowingly step on it/ grab it, it may decide to bite. |
| Venom | Most likely haemotoxins |
| Length | 80 – 90cm |
| Diet | Small mammals, birds, frogs and probably geckos |
| How easy to find | Occurs on the lower half of the Thai peninsula. It’s rarely encountered. |
| Best time of year | We have only seen one specimen which was in October. |
| Best time of day | We found it at night, but have heard of daytime records too. |
| Threats | Main threat is probably deforestation. |
| Notes: | Named after Wirot Nutaphand |
Description
The Wirot's Pit Viper is a brown camouflaged pit viper with a large triangular-shaped head and an unusual nose. Specimens vary in coloration, but tend to be in various brown tints with irregular patterning. From the top, the nose is rather squarish. From the side the nose is quite pointy. The ventrals are similar in coloration as the dorsum, finely mottled, darker towards the tail. Scale counts are as follows. 158 – 170 ventrals, 43 – 53 paired subcaudals, dorsal scale formula 19-23.
Behavior
There is little known about their behavior. Some records are high up trees, others on the forest floor. Our specimen was roughly 2m above the ground on a small twig. Wirot's Pit Viper is nocturnal.
Habitat
Wirot's Pit Viper has so far been recorded from Phang Nga all the way down to the Malaysian border. They can be found in lowland and submontane forest up to 1200m elevation. The specimen we’ve encountered was within about 20m from a small stream, at about 450 – 470m elevation. The direct surrounding habitat consists of vines under a closed canopy of tall trees.
Taxonomy
The species was named after Wirot Nutaphand, a Thai herpetologist. Some sources have placed the species in a different genus, Craspedocephalus.
In the past it has been synonymized with Trimeresurus puniceus, but later molecular data has confirmed that Trimeresurus wiroti is a valid species.
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