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Type: Articles
Published: 2009-09-15
Page range: 1–28
Abstract views: 223
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A taxonomic revision of the South Asian hump-nosed pit vipers (Squamata: Viperidae: Hypnale)

Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka Wildlife Heritage Trust, P.O. Box 66, Mt Lavinia, Sri Lanka
Wildlife Heritage Trust, P.O. Box 66, Mt Lavinia, Sri Lanka Faculty of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Rajarata University, Saliyapura, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
Wildlife Heritage Trust, P.O. Box 66, Mt Lavinia, Sri Lanka
Wildlife Heritage Trust, P.O. Box 66, Mt Lavinia, Sri Lanka
Reptilia Sri Lanka India Western Ghats taxonomy snake viper Hypnale zara nepa

Abstract

The hump-nosed pit vipers of the genus Hypnale are of substantial medical importance in Sri Lanka and India, being included among the five snakes most frequently associated with life-threatening envenoming in humans. The genus has hitherto been considered to comprise three species: H. hypnale, common to Sri Lanka and the Western Ghats of peninsular India; and H. nepa and H. walli, both of which are endemic to Sri Lanka. The latter two species have frequently been confused in the literature. Here, through a review of all extant name-bearing types in the genus, supplemented by examination of preserved specimens, we show that H. nepa is restricted to the higher elevations of Sri Lanka’s central mountains; that H. walli is a junior synonym of H. nepa; and that the endemic species widely distributed in the island’s south-western ‘wet-zone’ lowlands is H. zara. We also draw attention to a possibly new species known only from a single specimen collected near Galle in southern Sri Lanka. We illustrate all four species in colour, and provide a key to their identification and maps delineating their distribution.

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