New Pit Viper from Guizhou, China

Protobothrops maolanensis was recently described by Yang et al. (2011) from the limestone forested region of the Maolan National Nature Reserve, Guizhou, China. The new pit viper was discovered during a recent survey of the forest was the most common snake species found during the survey. P. maolanesis is a gray-colored, ground dwelling species that reaches a maximum length of about 0.7 m. The genus Protobothrops is widely distributed in South and Southeast Asia and maolanensis is the 12th species in the genus. For NGS story on this snake follow this link. Note that this press release suggests this species is the world's smallest pit vipers, it is not. Bothrops alcatraz is known to reach about 505 mm, a this may be the smallest pitviper, also most of the jumping pit vipers in the genus Porthidium rarely exceed 550 mm.

Citation
JIAN-HUAN YANG, NIKOLAI L. ORLOV & YING-YONG WANG. 2011. A new species of pitviper of the genus Protobothrops from China (Squamata: Viperidae). Zootaxa 2936:59–68

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