Bamboo Pit Viper | Portrait

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Bamboo Pit Viper Trimeresurus gramineus | Upper Kanheri Trail, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai

After waiting for years, I finally got to see my first Bamboo pit viper a couple of days ago. A small arboreal snake that inhabits hilly forests of the Western and Eastern Ghats, and the connecting hill ranges in between. SGNP in Mumbai, and the nearby forests of Phansad, are the only places where this species is found at low elevations. It is a calm snake with a moderately venomous bite like the other Trimeresurus pit vipers, but nevertheless has to be treated with caution.

Canon 500D, Canon 100mm Macro USM
SS 1/200
Av 16
ISO 400
Built-in flash used
Full frame image
This was one of those situations where a tripod would have been great, but setting it up would have been a huge hassle!

More compositions and habitat images coming up. Thanks for looking, C&C welcome.

[Arun Acharjee]

Nice image Abhishek da. Good to know about more habitat images. It will be great for me as I am looking for just the same compositions.

[Sandipan Ghosh]

great shot.....

[Mrudul Godbole]

Was it was coiled up on a tree? The eye is striking. Good details. How long was the sighting? Thanks for sharing.

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Thanks all.
Mrudul - It was on a shrub (as shown in the next image). Spent about half an hour with it, but it could have gone on forever as it wasn't going anywhere.