Thundering Typhoons: It's The Trimeresurus Malabaricus!

Reptiles pre-date the human race by some 100-odd million years. Yet the latter sometimes has a proprietary feeling towards mother earth. Not only that, man is known to be prejudiced towards this class of cohabitants, with a number of evil myths circulating about them. It is a fact that snakes are a farmer’s best friend as they rid the fields of rats, which damage the crop. And know this – snakes attack only when they are provoked.

In this article, let us learn about the poisonous members of this family — the pit vipers. They belong to the genus viperidae. The vipers — Russell’s viper and saw-scaled viper — occupy a place of pride in the Indian snake family known as the ‘Big Four’.


There are 24 pit viper varieties in India. A pit viper has large heat pits, a sensory organ on both sides of its head, between the eye and nostril. Other vipers do not have heat pits. Pit vipers can detect heat given off by warm-blooded animals and follow them.

Pit vipers are found in habitats ranging from deserts to rain forests. There’s one such habitat (a rainforest) in the North Canara district of Karnataka — part of the Western Ghats known as Yana. The place is famous for its tall monolithic rock cliffs surrounded by thick forests, making it a great trekking destination.

Some companions and I reached Yana late in the evening, our timing coinciding with that of the bats emerging from the cliffs. There was a Shiva temple there. We spotted some tourists lingering  around the temple, along with the temple priest.

We started to circle the cliffs and just then, to my left I spotted a colourful snake with lovely dark brown patches resting on the damp rocky slopes, well-camouflaged among the green climbers. It was a Malabar pit viper. The snake was peeping from the crevice while its tail held on firmly to the rock. It flicked its tongue frequently to taste and smell the air. Perhaps it was getting ready for its night prowl, to make a meal of a passing lizard or frog. Nobody else had cottoned on to its presence. Taking a long twig, we steered it away from the rock and deposited it in a place where chances of human contact would be lower. Yana is home to another poisonous snake — the king cobra. Monitor lizards too are found here.

Palakkad in Kerala has amazing forests with a rich biodiversity of plants and animals that spring to life, come monsoon. We passed through rubber tree plantations and briefly stopped at a forest check post, after which we gained admittance into the forest. Many of these forests have streams flowing in them. One such stream was under a tall, old bridge at Singapura forest. It flowed merrily as it invited the company of frogs, snakes, giant millipedes, spiders, butterflies, dragon flies and leeches. The many towering trees surrounding the stream made a canopy with the sun rays barely penetrating it.

We were strolling along the narrow path beside the stream when my cousin, who was walking behind me, suddenly stopped me in my tracks. He alerted me about a snake that was dozing peacefully a couple of metres ahead of us. It was a Malabar pit viper, which had done a fair job of camouflaging itself. Somewhat green in colour with patches on its body, it seemed content coiled against a low hanging bough of a tree (just about one foot off the ground). But make no mistake,  had anybody bothered it it would have shot up like a bullet and attacked. We kept a safe distance while photographing it.

The Malabar pit viper has a flat, triangular head and three colour morphs — brown, green and yellow. They are mostly nocturnal and move slowly. But they appear to be more active, and can be found both during day and night, during the monsoon. They are usually seen on small branches near water and rocks. Although they appear to be slow and shy, they strike fast. The fangs located in the front can move independent of each other. 

They can open their mouth wide — even up to 180 degrees. When they close their mouth, the fangs fold. The venom glands are located in the rear of upper jaws and just behind the eye. Viper venom acts mainly on the blood and muscle of the prey. Males are smaller than the females. The pupils of their eyes are vertical and elliptical. In Agumbe, Karnataka, there was an incident where a pit viper was hunted by a king cobra. Speeding vehicles too have caused vipers’ deaths.

Other common poisonous vipers in India are the Russell viper, which is the largest one growing up to 180 centimetres, the smaller saw-scaled viper, the bamboo pit viper and the hump-nosed pit viper.