New “Rattlesnake” Discovered

Russian and Vietnamese scientists have announced their discovery of a new species of “rattlesnake” (as it is called in the Vietnamese press release, but, no doubt, a “viper”), which belongs to the Protobothrops family, in the Trung Khanh Nature Reserve in the northwestern province of Cao Bang, the Vietnam news agency reported Thursday, August 20, 2009.

Nguyen Thien Tao, who is in charge of amphibians and reptiles at the Vietnam Nature Museum, said this is the fourth species of “rattlesnake” of the Protobothrops family identified in Vietnam.

The three others are Protobothrops cornutus, P.jerdonii and P. mucrosquamatus.

The new species of “rattlesnake” is named Protobothrops trungkhanhensis Orlov, Ryabov, an endemic species found in only the Trung Khanh Nature Reserve in Cao Bang, Vietnam.

The snake is only 733mm in length, quite small compared to other Protobothrops species, with a small triangle-shaped head and small scales.

The discovery was published in a Russian scientific magazine named Reptile and Amphibians in January 2009.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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