Porthidium ophryomegas (Bocourt, 1868) is a animal in the Viperidae family, order null, kingdom Animalia. Not known to be toxic.

Photo of Porthidium ophryomegas (Bocourt, 1868) (Porthidium ophryomegas (Bocourt, 1868))
🦋 Animalia

Porthidium ophryomegas (Bocourt, 1868)

Porthidium ophryomegas (Bocourt, 1868)

Porthidium ophryomegas is a Central American pit viper with defined size, color patterns, and ovoviviparous reproduction.

Family
Genus
Porthidium
Order
Class
Squamata

About Porthidium ophryomegas (Bocourt, 1868)

Adults of this species usually reach 40–60 cm (16–24 in) in length and have a relatively slender body build. Females grow larger than males: they are often more than 60 cm (24 in) long, while males are typically around 45 cm (18 in). One exceptional female specimen has been recorded at 77 cm (30 in). Its color pattern has a base ground color of tan, brown, gray, or grayish-brown. This base is overlaid with a narrow white, yellow, or rust brown vertebral stripe, plus 24–40 dark brown to nearly black blotches that either oppose or alternate across the vertebral line. The blotches have thin white borders that extend from the vertebral line at roughly a right angle. This species is found in Central America, specifically in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Its given type locality is "warm regions on the western slope of Cordillera, Escuintla, Guatemala", originally recorded in French as "les terres chaudes du versant occidental de la Cordillère Escuintla (Guatémala)". It inhabits seasonally dry forests: this includes tropical dry forests, arid forests, subtropical dry forests, and the more arid sections of tropical moist forests. This species is ovoviviparous: females give birth to live young that measure approximately 15 cm (6 inches) in length.

Photo: (c) francoismordant, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) · cc-by-nc

Taxonomy

Animalia Chordata Squamata Viperidae Porthidium

More from Viperidae

Sources: GBIF, iNaturalist, Wikipedia, NCBI Taxonomy · Disclaimer

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