Protobothrops cornutus (Smith, 1930)

Pham, Anh Van, Ziegler, Thomas & Nguyen, Truong Quang, 2020, New records and an updated checklist of snakes from Son La Province, Vietnam, Biodiversity Data Journal 8, pp. 52779-52779 : 52779

Protobothrops cornutus (Smith, 1930)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: TBU. MD.2015.110 ; individualCount: 1; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificNameID: Protobothropscornutus; scientificName: Protobothropscornutus; class: Reptilia; order: Squamata; family: Viperidae; genus: Protobothrops; specificEpithet: cornutus; scientificNameAuthorship: (Smith, 1930); Location: country: Vietnam; countryCode: VN; stateProvince: Son La; county: Phu Yen; municipality: Muong Do; locality: near Pap Village ; verbatimElevation: 720 m; verbatimLatitude: 21°12'36''N; verbatimLongitude: 104°45'58''E; verbatimCoordinateSystem: WGS84; Event: eventDate: 26 August 2015; eventRemarks: collected by H.V. Tu and C.A.K.P Kham; Record Level: language: en; collectionCode: Reptilia; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

Morphological characters of the voucher specimen from Son La Province agreed well with the description of Herrmann et al. (2004) and Luu et al. (2015): SVL 610 mm, TaL 146 mm (n = 1); body elongated; head triangular, distinct from neck, flat, covered by small scales; snout obtuse; rostral scale triangular, not visible above; nasal single, subrectangular; loreals 3/3, between nasal and preocular scale; loreal pit bordered by second supralabial and two preocular scales; supralabials 10/10, first completely separated from nasal, third supralabial largest, concave in the middle; horns including one enlarged scale and two relatively-enlarged supraoculars; supralabials separated from suboculars by 2 scales; infralabials 13/12, the first pair in contact with each other, the first three pairs in contact with the chin shields; dorsal scale rows 21-21-17, keeled; ventral scales 190; subcaudal scales 71, all paired; cloacal entire.

Colouration in life: dorsal head grey with dark brown marks; one stripe each side from posterior orbit to edge of the labial; dorsal surface grey-brown with serial blotches along the midbody; dorsolateral side light brown; ventral surface greyish-blue (Fig. 5 ).

Distribution

In Vietnam, this species has been reported from Lai Chau and Lao Cai provinces in the north, southwards to Quang Binh and Thua Thien Hue provinces ( Nguyen et al. 2009). Elsewhere, the species has been reported from China ( Nguyen et al. 2009).

Ecology

The voucher specimen was found at 20:35 h on the ground. The surrounding habitat was secondary forest composed of medium and small hardwoods, lianes and shrub. Air temperature was 25-30°C and relative humidity was 70-80%.

Figures

Figure 5. Protobothrops cornutus (TBU MD. 2015.110, adult male) from Son La Province, Vietnam. Photo: H. V. Tu