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India’s newest pit viper found in Arunachal Pradesh.
About the viper:
- The newly discovered species makes Arunachal Pradesh the only Indian state to have a pit viper named after it.
- Scientific name is Trimeresurusarunachalensis.
- It is a species of reddish-brown pit viper, a venomous snake with a unique heat-sensing system.
- With this, India now has a fifth brown pit viper (Other four are Malabar, horseshoe, hump-nosed and Himalayan).
- Discovery makes the Arunachal pit viper the second serpent to have been discovered after the non-venomous crying keelback in the State’s Lepa-Rada district in 2018.