One of the 12 vipers on WAnimals
Reptiles · Squamata · Viperidae
Western Russell's Viper
Daboia russelii
Least Concern
The species is abundant and widely distributed; it faces no significant short-term risk.
Russell's viper, also called the chain viper, the Indian Russell's viper, or the scissors snake, is a species of venomous viperid snake of the Old World, which lives in Asia across the Indian subcontinent; the former subspecies D. russelii siamensis is spread across most of South-East Asia, southern China and Taiwan. Daboia was, until recently, a monotypic genus. It is one of the "Big Four" venomous snakes of India. This species is responsible for most snakebite cases and deaths in the world because of how often it is found in places populated by humans. Its name was given in honour of Patrick Russell (1726-1805), a Scottish herpetologist, the first to describe many of the snakes of India; its generic name, daboia, comes from Hindi and means "that thing which lies hidden" or "the one that lurks".
Weight
1 kg – 3 kg
Size
1 m – 1.7 m
