Common lancehead
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| Common Lancehead | ||||||||||||||
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| Missing image Bothropsatrox.png Common Lancehead The animal above is a baby, and still has the bright yellow tail used as a lure to attract prey. | ||||||||||||||
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| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Bothrops atrox Linnaeus, 1758 |
The common lancehead (Bothrops atrox), commonly referred to as the fer-de-lance, mapepire balsain (Trinidad and Tobago), or labaria (Guyana), is a highly venomous pit viper of the Bothrops genus. It is native to Trinidad and South America south to eastern Peru, northern Bolivia, and most of Brazil, in both wooded and open habitats.
Adults have a length up to 2 meters and a thick body. Females are bigger than males. The head is triangular and pointed, as indicated by the common name. This snake is well camouflaged, variably colored in shades of brown and olive, often with "geometric" markings including pale stripes that may outline triangles on the back with their apexes at the spine. The underside of the head is pale yellowish, whence one Spanish name barba amarilla (yellow beard), which is also used in English.
It is more often active at night than during the day. It sometimes lies on trails, and it also comes into farm fields and houses to look for its rodent prey. Because of these habits and its commonness and wide range, it's responsible for a disproportionate number of fatal bites.
The taxonomy of this species is controversial; it may include the whitetail lancehead and the Brazilian lancehead, and some of its populations are sometimes said to be separate species. The terciopelo was formerly included in this species but most authorities now consider it distinct.
External links
Viperidae page from the European Bioinformatics Institute's genetic database (http://www.embl-heidelberg.de/~uetz/families/Viperidae.html). Click on Bothrops and then on Bothrops atrox.
Animal Diversity Web page on the common lancehead (http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Bothrops_atrox.html)
Venomous Snakes of Guyana (http://www.iwokrama.org/forest/snakes.htm) from Iwokrama, with photograph.
Page on the common lancehead (http://eco.ib.usp.br/labvert/Jararaca/projjar_atrox_manaus.htm) in Manaus, Brazil, with links to photographs (in Portuguese).