Temple Pit Viper

Southeast Asia Snakes

Snakes ~ Vipers ~ Temple Pit Viper

Temple pit vipers are one of Southeast Asia's most recognisable venomous snakes due to their abundance and popularity as exhibits in zoos and temples. A recent revision has split up what was once collectively known as Trimeresurus wagleri into several species grouped under the Tropidolaemus complex. Hence, this genera occurs through Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, Borneo, Indonesia and the Philippines, in all levels of rainforest. Tropidolaemus wagleri will be discussed here.

This species is remarkably very sedentary and features strong sexual dimorphism in adults. The adult female temple viper is dark black and attractively marked with jagged yellow bands which encircle the ventrals completely, along with random greenish white spots on the flanks. About three scales above the ventrals, the scales join in the white colouration of the ventral region. The body is very stocky and the head robust while the tail-tip is often blunt.

Female temple vipers give birth to between 8 - 20 live young, which range from being greyish blue to bright green in ontogenic colouration. However, males retain their colours till adulthood and also grow to less than 1/20 of a typical female size. In the juvenile stage, females can be told apart from males by the dorsal patterning. In males, there are pairs of cream and red spots on the dorsum while females have transversal bands of the same colour instead.

The temple viper hunts a wide variety of prey including birds, frogs, rodents and small mammals. Its venom is reputedly one of the weakest, if not the most mild, of the Southeast Asian pit-vipers. However, their numbers are fast declining in the wild due to their collection for use as altar adornments in Chinese temples, which is also the inspiration for the common name. In these temples, the vipers suffer acute respiratory illnesses from the thick incense smoke that permeate the grounds. In addition, fangs are often forcefully removed to allow them to be used as trinkets in photography for tourists.