Russell's Viper

This post is being written after I read an article about a 21 year old man named Cody Bartolini, young owner of mojavereptiles was caught attempting to sell venomous reptiles over state lines.

Time and time again I have written posts telling and in fact warning buyers/sellers to check local and state laws beforehand

While I myself love and adore the beautiful, fascinating and very necessary animals that snakes are, I am not a professional nor have I been properly trained by a professional herpetologist in the handling of venomous snakes to feel sufficiently confident to do so.

I do love all snakes but I'm not stupid. I do not have a death wish.

All that being said, I would like to begin my post about the Russell's Viper.

According to herpetologist Mark O'Shea there are two types of Russell's Vipers, the Indian Russell's and the Sri Lankan Russell's Viper.

Read Mark O'Shea's article "Blood Sweat & Snakebites" here.

Russell's Viper (Daboia or Vipera Russelli) regarded as comprising five subspecies, russelli, pulchella, siamensis, formensis & limitis,distributed discontinuously throughout 10 south Asian countries. (Warrell 1989)

Studies of Wüster et al. (1992) have rejected the validity of several of the subspecies and supported the concept of western (russelli) and eastern (siamensis) forms.

Previous quoted data from Venomous Snakes: Ecology, Evolution and snakebite by Roger S. Thorpe, Wolfgang Wüster and Anita Malhotra.

The data I quoted seems to support what O'Shea said on there being two major species of Indian and Sri Lankan Russell's Vipers.

The following material cited from:
Population systematics of Russell's viper: a multivariate study
WOLFGANG WÜSTER, SATOKO OTSUKA, ANITA MALHOTRA, ROGER S. THORPE Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 1992 47:1 97

A multivariate analysis of the population systematics of Russell's viper, based on scalation and colour pattern characters, reveals that the populations of this viper constitute two well-defined taxa: a western form, comprising all populations from the Indian subcontinent, and an eastern form, comprising all populations from east of the Bay of Bengal.

The two forms could be considered either as subspecies of one species, or as two separate species, depending on the species concept used. Within the western form, there is no clear pattern of geographic variation. Within the eastern form, the populations from the Lesser Sunda Islands are clearly divergent from the populations of mainland Asia and Java.

The conventionally recognized subspecies of Vipera russelli fail to portray this pattern of geographic variation. There is no clear relationship between the pattern of geographic variation in morphology and the pattern of geographic variation in the clinical effects of the venom in human bite victims: some populations with considerable differences in venom effects are equally distinct morphologically, whereas other populations with equally strong venom differences are morphologically very similar.

The distribution of Russell's viper can be attributed to Pleistocene changes in climate and sea level, coupled with the viper's ecological requirements, which appear to include a seasonally dry climate.

The next post will carry on with the differences in the two species.