A new species of green pit vipers of the genus Trimeresurus Lacépède, 1804 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Viperidae) from western Arunachal Pradesh, India

By

Mirza, Zeeshan
Bhosale, Harshal
Phansalkar, Pushlar
Sawant, Mandar
Gowande, Gaurang
Patel, Harshil

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2020

Original Publication

Zoosystematics and evolution

Volume

96

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

123--138

Subjects

Biodiversity hotspot , Crotalinae , cryptic species , Himalayas , molecular phylogeny , northeastern India , taxonomy

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia Pensoft

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.96.48431

 

Abstract

A new species of green pit vipers of the genus Trimeresurus Lacépède, 1804 is described from the lowlands of western Arunachal Pradesh state of India. The new species, Trimeresurus salazar, is a member of the subgenus Trimeresurus, a relationship deduced contingent on two mitochondrial genes, 16S and ND4, and recovered as sister to Trimeresurus septentrionalis Kramer, 1977. The new species differs from the latter in bearing an orange to reddish stripe running from the lower border of the eye to the posterior part of the head in males, higher number of pterygoid and dentary teeth, and a short, bilobed hemipenis. Description of the new species and T. arunachalensis Captain, Deepak, Pandit, Bhatt & Athreya, 2019 from northeastern India in a span of less than one year highlights the need for dedicated surveys to document biodiversity across northeastern India.