Trimeresurus borneensis mistake

Here is another Trimeresurus puniceus from my collection. A female and i bought her as a Trimeresurus borneensis. With a friend of my (Dick Visser) i drove for more then 10 hours just to pick here up. Before that i only saw a few pictures of her. The former owner ensure me that she was a import animal from borneo (that rules puniceus out) so i thought i was lucky. How little did i know.

As you can see she is completely patternless. Only a few white dots here and there but not the saddle pattern as a 'normal' female puniceus has. I have never see a patternless puniceus and i've seen hundreds of them. Besides this lack of pattern it's a very strange looking animal (for a puniceus). Extremely big head with a somewhat narrow body. But... when i got home i start to compare her scales with some documents i have and came to the conclusion that it has to be a puniceus. No doubt about it. She is not very big, 60cm or so, and that's why i didn't notice it before. You have to take a picture and zoom in on it to see that it is a puniceus.

I payed a very high price (for a puniceus that is) for this animal and the former owner offer me to buy here back. Funny thing is that he is still convinced that she she is imported from Borneo. I've decide to keep her in my collection. I won't breed her (still not 100% sure) but it's a weird animal in my collection....

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Bp3

Jan

Not nice if I think about the 10h way.

What do you think about this animal. I got it in a kind of buy one, get one free action years ago.

The old owner didn´t know it what it should be exactly and was in the opinion that it was Trimeresurus borneensis.
I have to say that I gave this animal away because I didn´t want to own a single of a spec.

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Trim_spec1

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Trim_spec1

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Trim_spec1_g

I have a deja vu here Very Happy

Jörg Porstmann wrote:: What do you think about this animal. I got it in a kind of buy one, get one free action years ago.

Clearly a puniceus to me Wink

The second SL is not bordering the pit. Does not even touch it.

In David's (et al) "A revision of the Trimeresurus puniceus-complex (Serpentes: Viperidae:
Crotalinae) based on morphological and molecular data" you can read:

Secont SL (supra labial) not bordering the loreal pit is Trimeresurus puniceus group, Secont SL bordering entirely the loreal pit is Trimeresurus borneensis group.

and on page 41 of the same article:

T. borneensis: "1 to 3 moderat, narrow supraoculairs, usualy flat, rarly convex." T. puniceus: " 2 to 5 small, distinctly raised supraoculairs."

As you can see on your picture the supraoculairs are clearly raised.

The problem with puniceus is that they are come in so many different colors, forms, shapes, sizes, whatever that people, and i was one of them not so long ago, mix them up with Trimeresurus borneensis or Trimeresurus wiroti. One have to look really close to make sure if it's a borneensis or not.

But still i'm not sure what my animal is. Looking at David's writing i say it's a puniceus. And when people ask me what it is i tell them that it's a puniceus. But the patternless body in combination with the strong believe of the former owner who still claims that this animal is from Borneo... i don't know...

Some other pictures (perhaps someone else sees something Smile

):

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Punorbor1

and this should be a borneensis, see the differents?

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Punorbor3

And my animal again, completely no pattern whatsoever....

Trimeresurus borneensis mistake Punorbor2

Jan

I posted my images because of the fact that this animal is mostley patternless and the pre owner told me that it was borneensis too. Funny at all.

Jörg Porstmann wrote:: I posted my images because of the fact that this animal is mostley patternless and the pre owner told me that it was borneensis too. Funny at all.

Jan

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