Slender Hognose Pit Viper For Sale

The Hognose Pit Viper For Sale genus Porthidium has undergone several revisions since its conception by Cope (1871). The genus has included two to 17 species of terrestrial snakes, most of them less than a meter in total length, and most with middle American distributions (Amaral 1927, 1929, 1944, Boulenger 1896, Campbell and Lamar 1989, Cope 1871, Dunn 1928). They share cryptic patterns and colors, and a sharply defined canthus rostralis, presumably adaptations necessary for the sedentary lifestyle of ambush predators (Campbell and Lamar 1989).

Gutberlet (1998) placed Porthidium melanurum (Muller 1923) into Ophryacus. The genus Bothrocophias now includes P. hyoprora (Gutberlet and Campbell 2001). Recently, phylogenetic relationships among the remaining species have been reviewed using morphological (Werman 1992, 1999), and molecular (Parkinson 1999, Parkinson et al. 2002) characters, and analyzed with powerful new computational algorithms. Porthidium (sensu lato) comprises three genera: the jumping pitvipers, genus Atropoides (Werman 1992); the montane pitvipers, genus Cerrophidion (Campbell and Lamar 1992); and the hognosed pitvipers, genus Porthidium (Campbell and Lamar 1989, in press). Despite the considerable morphological differences, the three genera form a monophyletic clade that originated and evolved in Central America (Savage 2002).

Porthidium includes eight species of terrestrial snakes ranging collectively from Mexico to Ecuador. In addition to a well defined canthus rostralis, members of Porthidium possess a rostral that is higher than it is wide, and the snout is usually attenuate and may be elevated either moderately or greatly. They are terrestrial, less than a meter in overall length, are medium to moderately stout in build, and inhabit xeric or transitional forest (Lawson 1997). The widely distributed P. nasutum is a notable exception, being restricted to lowland rainforest and lower montane wet forest. It ranges from Chiapas, Mexico, to western Colombia and Ecuador (Wilson and McCranie 1984, Campbell and Lamar 1989). More than twenty years field experience along the Caribbean versant of lower Central America leads us to conclude that P. nasutum is one of the most abundant snakes in that region, and this was recently supported by Castoe (2002). Another species that ranges into mesic forest is P. lansbergii, but it is likely a composite species as currently recognized, and the distribution in Central America is restricted to Panama. In Costa Rica the endemic P. volcanicum is also found in mesic forest (Solórzano 1994), and we herein describe another species, an inhabitant of the isolated rainforests in the southwestern portion of that country. Like its closest relative, P. nasutum, it is rather stout and has a greatly elevated snout.