476 
THE CORAL TRIANGLE: HEARST BIODIVERSITY EXPEDITION 
Hemibungarus and Calliophis, dangerously venomous. The only definitive way to know whether 
a dark and light banded snake is a venomous or non-venomous speeies is to examine the side of 
the head just in front of the eye to see if a loreal scale (see fig. on p. 480) is present. If it is absent, 
the snake may well be a venomous species. In the illustrated keys that follow, these and other defin¬ 
ing characters are clearly noted. 
With respect to the treatment of snake-bites, again it cannot be overstated that all bites should 
be taken seriously. It is tme that a large percentage of bites, even by dangerously venomous snakes, 
are “dry bites,” that is bites in which no envenomation occui's. Because it is not always possible to 
know immediately following a bite whether or not envenomation has occun*ed, it is imperative to 
seek appropriate medical treatment as soon as possible. More complete instmctions are available 
in other publications, several of which are given in the bibliography (see in particular WHO 1999 
and Lewin [this volume]). 
The snake fauna of the Philippines is reasonably well known, although there are areas of the 
country that have not been thoroughy investigated, especially parts of Luzon, Mindanao, and 
Palawan. It should be emphasized that precise knowledge of the kinds of venomous snakes pres¬ 
ent is imperative if one is going to receive effective medical treatment for a snakebite. For instance, 
in the Philippines, heretofore, only one species with thi'ee subspecies of the Philippine cobra was 
recognized, Naja naja, but extensive work by investigators demonsfrated that in reality the three 
subspecies are quite distinct and are now recognized as full species. However, in the Philippines, 
only one antivenin is manufactured and readily available, for Naja philippinensis. The importance 
of this can be appreciated when one considers that to treat a snakebite one must often use species- 
specific antivenom in as much as the antivenom used to treat one kind of snakebite may not work 
for the bites of other species. Whether the species-specific antivenom for the Philippine cobra, Naja 
philippinensis, works for other cobra snakebites is not known. 
The Philippines has a highly diverse fauna. And as a result of recent surveys, starting in the 
1950s by the late Walter C. Brown of Menlo College, California, and and his colleague Angel 
Alcala, then at Silliman University, Dumaguete, and thanks to recent field work tlii*oughout the 
archipelago, knowledge of the faunal diversity has improved greatly. It is hoped that this contribu¬ 
tion will enable those engaged in the study of the fauna in the field and the laboratory to recognize 
more readily the most dangerous components of that fauna. 
The present work represents an effort with a single puipose, to aid in the identification of ven¬ 
omous snakes of the Philippines. Thus, we have made no attempt to provide inclusive synonymies, 
which are available in several of the works we cite, namely, Taylor (1922a), Leviton (1964a, 
1964b), Golayetal. (1993), McDiamiid, Campbell and Toure (1999), and David and Ineich (1999). 
Where necessary, we provide additional references. Descriptions of individual species are inten¬ 
tionally brief, but they include the data necessary for confirmation of identifications. The data for 
Size refer to known maximum lengths recorded for the species; when available, total and tail 
lengths for males and females are given sepai'ately. In the statements on Distribution, we list only 
the counti*y for non-Philippine localities and, where known, to Island and/or Province within the 
Philippines (see map, p. 492). 
We accept names for all of the dangerously venomous snake species in the Philippines that rep¬ 
resent the most current taxonomic arrangements, although with respect to sea snakes we have fol¬ 
lowed Sanders et al. (2013) (see also Pyron et al. 2013) in the use of generic assignments of species 
and Rasmussen et al. (2011) for subfamily assignments. We provide a brief table of equivalencies 
(p. 487) so that those familiar with older names can quickly locate the species of interest. For 
instance, in the Philippines, snakes fonnerly referred to collectively as Trimeresurus wagleri, have 
been assigned to two different species under the genus name Tropidolaemus (i.e., T. philippensis 
