Trimeresurus sabahi

Trimeresurus sabahi, commonly known as the Sabah pit viper^[1] or Sabah bamboo pitviper,^[3][4] is a venomous pitviper species.^[3] If defined narrowly, it is endemic to the island of Borneo.^[1] If defined more broadly, it consists of five subspecies found in Southeast Asia.^[3]

Trimeresurus sabahi
Trimeresurus sabahi fucatus
Conservation status
Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Reptilia
Order:	Squamata
Suborder:	Serpentes
Family:	Viperidae
Genus:	Trimeresurus
Species:	T. sabahi
Binomial name
Trimeresurus sabahi Regenass & Kramer, 1981
Synonyms
Trimeresurus popeorum sabahi Regenass & Kramer, 1981 Trimeresurus gramineus sabahi – Welch, 1988 Trimeresurus popeorum sabahi – Golay et al., 1993[2] Trimeresurus popeiorum sabahi – Gumprecht et al., 2004 Trimeresurus sabahi – Vogel et al., 2004 Popeia sabahi – Creer et al., 2006 Trimeresurus (Popeia) sabahi – Vogel et al., 2011

Subspecies

There are five subspecies:^[3]

• Trimeresurus sabahi barati Regenass & Kramer, 1981 – Sumatra, Mentawai Archipelago (Indonesia)
• T. s. buniana Grismer, Grismer & McGuire, 2006 – Tioman Island (Malaysia)
• T. s. fucatus Vogel, David & Pauwels, 2004 – Malay Peninsula (southern Myanmar, Thailand, West Malaysia)

T. s fucatus

• T. s. sabahi Regenass & Kramer, 1981 – northern Borneo (Malaysia)
• T. s. toba David, Petri, Vogel & Doria, 2009 – Sumatra

IUCN treats these as full species, respectively T. barati,^[5] T. buniana,^[6] T. fucatus,^[7] and T. toba,^[8] restricting T. sabahi to the nominotypical subspecies.^[1]

Description

Adults may attain a snout-vent length (SVL) of 62 cm (24 in).^[9]

Dorsally, it is uniform green, without crossbars. Ventrally it is pale green. There is narrow bicolor stripe on the first one and a half dorsal scale rows. In males this stripe is rust-colored or red below, and it is white above. In females it is yellow or white. The iris of the eye is red or orange in adults of both sexes, but in young specimens may be yellowish-green. There are no markings behind the eye.^[9]

The scalation includes 21 (23) rows of dorsal scales at midbody, 149–157/148–156 ventral scales in males/females or 148–159 in general, 72–76/59–65 subcaudal scales in males/females, and 9–11 supralabial scales (9–10 with the third being the largest).^[4]

Habitat

In Borneo, it inhabits mountainous regions at altitudes from 1,000 m (3,300 ft) to 1,150 m (3,770 ft), where it is commonly found on branches of shrubs and other low vegetation.^[9]

Reproduction

The reproductive biology of this species is unknown.^[9]