Bothriechis is a genus of , commonly called palm vipers[Mehrtens JM (1987). Living Snakes of the World in Color. New York: Sterling Publishers. 480 pp. .] or palm-pit vipers[Campbell JA, (2004). The Venomous Reptiles of the Western Hemisphere. Ithaca and London: Comstock Publishing Associates. 870 pp., 1,500 plates. .] found predominantly in Mexico and Central America.[
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Description
Species that belong to the genus Bothriechis typically reach a total length (tail included) of , while B. aurifer, B. bicolor and B. lateralis are known to grow to a total length of or more.
General characteristics include a sharply defined canthus rostralis, an unelevated snout, a rostral scale that is not as high as it is broad, and a prehensile tail that accounts for at least 15% of the body length.
The color pattern usually consists of a green ground color that may or may not include pale or dark markings. B. schlegelii is an exception to this rule.
Geographic range
Bothriechis species occur in southern Mexico (southeastern Oaxaca and the northern highlands of Chiapas), through Central America to northern South America (Colombia, western Venezuela, Ecuador and northern Peru).
Behavior
As a general rule, species of Bothriechis found above altitude tend to be diurnal, while those found below tend to be active at night. Those found between may be active at any time of the day.
Venom
Bothriechis venom is primarily a hemotoxic which causes severe pain, swelling, bleb formation, bruise, and quite often necrosis. If untreated it can lead to loss of a limb, or even death. Each year several farmers and plantation workers are bitten by eyelash vipers, sometimes resulting in fatalities. Wyeth in the United States and Instituto Clodomiro Picado in Costa Rica both manufacture different polyvalent which can be used to treat eyelash viper envenomations.
Species
There are 19 recognized species.[
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| | B. aurifer | (Osbert Salvin, 1860) | yellow-blotched palm-pitviper | Mexico, in the mountains of eastern Chiapas, in northern Guatemala. Occurs in cloud forest at 1200–2300 m altitude. |
| | B. bicolor | (Boucourt, 1868) | Guatemalan palm-pitviper | The Pacific slope of southeastern Chiapas in Mexico, eastward to south-central Guatemala. Also known from several locations in Honduras, including the southern part of the Sierra del Merendón and Cerro Santa Bárbara. Occurs in cloud forests at 500–2000 m altitude. |
| | B. guifarroi | , ,
Wilson, & , 2013 | Guifarro's palm-pitviper | Honduras at 1015–1450 m altitude. "Found in the western portion of Cordillera Nombre de Dios, Department of Atlantida, Honduras." |
| | B. hussaini | Arteaga et al. 2024 | Hussain's eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. khwargi | Arteaga et al. 2024 | Khwarg’s eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. klebbai | Arteaga et al. 2024 | Klebba's eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. lateralis | Wilhelm Peters, 1862 | side-striped palm-pitviper | The mountains of Costa Rica and western Panama, including the Cordillera de Tilarán, the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera de Talamanca to the provinces of Chiriquí Province and Veraguas. Occurs at 850–980 m altitude. |
| | B. marchi | (Thomas Barbour & Arthur Loveridge, 1929) | Honduran palm-pitviper | The Atlantic versant of northwestern Honduras and eastern Guatemala. Occurs in mesic forest at elevations of 500–1500 m altitude. |
| | B. nigroadspersus | Steindachner, 1870 | Central American eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. nigroviridisT | W. Peters, 1859 | black-speckled palm-pitviper | The mountains of Costa Rica and Panama. Also found in the cloud forests of the Cordillera Central and the Cordillera de Talamanca at 1150–2400 m altitude. |
| | B. nitidus | Günther, 1859 | Ecuadorian eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. nubestris | , , Castoe, & , 2016 | Talamancan palm-pitviper | Costa Rica. San Isidro de El General, Province of San José at approximately 3000 m altitude. |
| | B. rahimi | Arteaga et al. 2024 | Rahim's eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. rasikusumorum | Arteaga et al. 2024 | Shah's eyelash pitviper | |
| | B. rowleyi | (Bogert, 1968) | Mexican palm-pitviper | Mexico in southeastern Oaxaca and northern Chiapas. Occurs in cloud forests at 1500–1830 m altitude. |
| | B. schlegelii | (Berthold, 1846) | highland eyelash pitviper, Schlegel’s eyelash pitviper | From southern Mexico (northern Chiapas), southeastward on the Atlantic slope and lowlands through Central America to northern South America in Colombia and Venezuela. Also found on the Pacific versant and lowlands in parts of Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Occurs in mesic forest at elevations almost from sea level to 2640 m altitude. |
| | B. supraciliaris | (Taylor, 1954) | blotched eyelash pitviper | Only found in a mountainous area in southwestern Costa Rica. Occurs in lower montane wet forest and cloud forest at elevations from 800 metre to 1,700 m. |
| | B. thalassinus | Campbell & , 2000 | Merendon palm-pitviper | Guatemala, Honduras at 1370–1750 m altitude. |
| | B. torvus | , 1889 | Birri eyelash pitviper | |
T type species
Taxonomy
A new species of Bothriechis from Guatemala and Honduras, B. thalassinus, was described by Campbell & (2000). Campbell & (2004) recognize this species, as well as a ninth addition to the genus: B. supraciliaris, which was first described by Taylor (1954) as a subspecies of B. schlegelii, and is found in southwestern Costa Rica.
In 2024, a systematic revision of B. schlegelii through DNA-sequencing split it into an additional number of species: B. klebbai, B. rasikusumorum, B. khwargi, B. rahimi, and B. hussaini. At the same time names that were previously synonyms were revalidated: B. nigroadspersus (Steindachner, 1870), B. nitidus (Günther, 1859), and B. torvus (Posada Arango, 1889a). Due to the close relation between these species alongside B. supraciliaris, they are considered to be part of a B. schlegelii species complex, otherwise referred to as the "eyelash clade" within Bothriechis. These "eyelash vipers" form a monophyletic clade that is sister to the rest of the genus.
B. guifarroi was discovered in 2010 and described by et al. in 2013, in a study that included the following suggested phylogenetic tree of the genus:
Further reading
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Campbell JA, (2000). "A new species of arboreal pitviper from the Atlantic versant of northern Central America". Revista de Biología Tropical 48: 1001–1013.
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Cope ED (1860) (dated 1859). "Catalogue of the venomous serpents in the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, with notes on the families, genera and species". Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 11: 332-347 338.
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Wilhelm Peters (1859). " Über die von Hrn. Dr. Hoffmann in Costa Rica gesammelten und an das Königl. Zoologische Museum gesandten Schlangen". Monatsberichte der Preussischen Akademie Wissenschaften zu Berlin 1859: 275-278 278. (in German).
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(1889). " Apuntamientos para la ofiología colombiana". Anales de la Academia de Medicina de Medellin 2: 45-49 47. (in Spanish).
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Posada-Arango A (1889). " Note sur quelques solénoglyphes de Colombie". Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de France, Paris 14: 343-345 343. (in French).
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Osbert Salvin (1860). "On the reptiles of Guatemala". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1860: 451-461 459.
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Taylor EH (1954). "Further studies on the serpents of Costa Rica". University of Kansas Science Bulletin 36 (11): 673–801.
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