Images - Thailand

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Female viper from a small island near Phuket. This snake shows a contrast-rich coloration.

Adult female from the southernmost province of Thailand, Narathiwat.

Adult female from Krabi province

Habitat of Wagler’s viper in Krabi

Adult female

T. wagleri

Khao Sok National Park, Thailand: This large specimen features the typical coloration of females of advanced age: green or blue scales often turn completely white, contrasted against yellow bars and a black dorsum.

Adult female from the southern province Narathiwat. Although photographed under natural light, colors were much more intense than conveyed here. Especially, yellow elements were extremely intense. I regard southern Thai/northern Malaysian specimens as the most beautiful snakes.

Portrait of the specimen above.

Mating couple from southern Thailand, in captivity in November in Thailand. She is still young (4 years, about 70 cm), the male is relatively large, about 60 cm (3 yrs-old). Both were born and raised in captivity. Their encounter was the first sexual activity. In contrast to 'experienced' males, which mount a female immediately after an encounter, this one remained unresponsive to her for 3 days, even when he was crawling on her back. Suddenly, his behaviour changed, showing the typical jerking and nervous movements that males make while mating. Spraying the snakes with water usually started a new round of mating attempts by the male. Note his extreme tongue flicking, which was pronounced during mating. Here, he bends the tongue downwards for more than a second.

Female from southern Thailand, in splendid blue and yellow, although quality of the image is not optimal. I copied it from an old slide, one of my first Wagler’s vipers that I raised in captivity (about 1978).

These wonderful images of a large female and a male Wagler’s viper were taken by Christian Hübner in Khao Sok National Park and its vicinity in southern Thailand. The female was photographed in March, and judging by the somewhat swollen hind part of its body it is probably gravid. Newborn vipers can be seen between January and April in Thailand (see breeding section), so the month of observation fits well here.