Russell's Viper

Description

Russell's viper (Daboia russelii) is a venomous snake in the family Viperidae native to the Indian subcontinent and one of the big four snakes in India. It was described in 1797 by George Shaw and Frederick Polydore Nodder, and named after Patrick Russell, who wrote about it in his 1796 work An account of Indian serpents, collected on the coast of Coromandel. The Russel's viper's head is flattened, triangular, and distinct from the neck. The snout is blunt, rounded, and raised. The nostrils are large, each in the middle of a large, single nasal scale. The lower edge of the nasal scale touches the nasorostral scale. The supranasal scale has a strong crescent shape and separates the nasal from the nasorostral scale anteriorly. The rostral scale is as broad as it is high. The crown of the head is covered with irregular, strongly fragmented scales. The supraocular scales are narrow, single, and separated by six to nine scales across the head. The eyes are large, flecked with yellow or gold, and surrounded by 10–15 circumorbital scales. The snake has 10–12 supralabials, the fourth and fifth of which are significantly larger. The eye is separated from the supralabials by three or four rows of suboculars. Of the two pairs of chin shields, the front pair is notably enlarged. The two maxillary bones support at least two and at the most five or six pairs of fangs at a time: the first are active and the rest replacements. The fangs attain a length of 16.5 mm (0.65 in) in the average specimen. The body is stout, the cross-section of which is rounded to circular. The dorsal scales are strongly keeled; only the lowest row is smooth. Mid-body, the dorsal scales number 27–33. The ventral scales number 153–180. The anal plate is not divided. The tail is short—about 14% of the total length—with the paired subcaudals numbering 41–68.