Malayan Pit Viper

The Malayan pit viper is a pit viper widely distributed across Southeast Asia, including Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and parts of Indonesia. It is a heavy-bodied, well-camouflaged ground-dwelling species often found in agricultural and lowland habitats.

It is abundant near farmland, and its cryptic, leaf-litter camouflage helps it blend into rubber, oil palm, and rice plantations.

• Reddish-brown to grayish-brown body with a series of dark, triangular or hourglass-shaped blotches along the back, often edged in pale cream
• Distinctive pale stripe running from behind the eye toward the corner of the mouth
• Broad, triangular, arrow-shaped head clearly distinct from a narrower neck
• Heat-sensing pit organs between the eye and nostril
• Vertically elliptical pupils
• Keeled, rough-textured scales
• Stout, heavy body relative to its moderate length

Found in lowland forest, scrubland, agricultural plantations (especially rubber and oil palm), rice paddies, and areas with abundant leaf litter across its Southeast Asian range, typically at low elevations.

Primarily nocturnal, though it may be active by day in shaded conditions. A sluggish, sit-and-wait ambush predator that relies heavily on camouflage among leaf litter, striking rapidly at passing rodents, birds, and other small vertebrates. Unusually among vipers it is oviparous, laying eggs that the female guards until hatching.