Mamushi

[Brian Petersen]

Gloydius blomhoffi.

Enjoy

Kind regards

Brian
Denmark

[Alex]

waoh!..i like taht pattern

[SilverTongue]

perty nice!!!!!!!!

[Nikki Gervais]

Ohhhh impressive snake, wicked pattern :)

[Nightflight99]

Very nice specimen, Brian. Gloydius taxonomy is tough with a mere picture at hand, but your specimen appears to be Gloydius blomhoffi brevicaudus. It could also be Gloydius blomhoffi siniticus, but I am more inclined to go with the former subspecies on this one.

http://www.venomousreptiles.org/libraries/download/1694/mamushif-004a.jpg
Pictured is a juvenile female specimen of Gloydius blomhoffi siniticus from my collection. This young gal was born last summer, and is already starting to attain the red coloration of her mother. This picture is fairly old, and the coloration is just beginning to show. The parent animals were imported in 2000 from the Yangtze River basin in China.

Regards,

---Nightflight99

[Brian Petersen]

Hi´ NF99

I´ll see if i can take a better pic, because it would be nice to know what it is. Do you know where i can find out more about their venom and so on?
Thanks

Brian
Denmark

[Nightflight99]

Hi Brian,
I'm not aware of any website specifically dedicated to this genus, and you will be hard pressed to find a site that provides more than just superficial information regarding this taxon. If you want detailed information, you will have to do some research.

For information regarding the venom of Gloydius blomhoffi, check out some of the following papers:

Yamazaki Y, Koike H, Sugiyama Y, Motoyoshi K, Wada T, Hishinuma S, Mita M, Morita T. 2002. Cloning and characterization of novel snake venom proteins that block smooth muscle contraction. Eur J Biochem 2002 Jun;269(11):2708-15

Nakayama K, Awata S, Zhang J, Ebinuma H, Mariyama T, Kodama H. 2000. Contents of sulfur amino acids, and cystathionine beta-synthase and gamma-lyase activities in various tissues from Agkistroden blomhoffi (mamushi). Physiol Chem Phys Med NMR 2000;32(1):21-6

Murayama N, Michel GH, Yano****a R, Samejima Y, Saguchi K, Ohi H, Fujita Y, Higuchi S. 2000. cDNA cloning of bradykinin-potentiating peptides-C-type natriuretic peptide precursor, and characterization of the novel peptide Leu3-blomhotin from the venom of Agkistrodon blomhoffi. Eur J Biochem 2000 Jul;267(13):4075-80

Kogan AE, Bashkov GV, Bobruskin ID, Romanova EP, Makarov VA, Strukova SM. 1994. The antithrombotic action of a protein C activator from the venom of Agkistrodon blomhoffi ussuriensis in thrombus formation in an extracorporeal shunt in rats. Eksp Klin Farmakol 1994 Mar-Apr;57(2):42-5

Kogan AE, Bashkov GV, Bobruskin ID, Romanova EP, Makarov VA, Strukova SM. 1993. Protein C activator from the venom of Agkistrodon blomhoffi ussuriensis retards thrombus formation in the arterio-venous shunt in rats. Thromb Res 1993 Jun 1;70(5):385-93

There are also some older papers that use an outdated taxonomy and are thus questionable regarding their validity.

Proper identification of Gloydius blomhoffi ssps. is best done by use of locality information. Do you happen to know where your specimen originated from? Just by its appearance, I'm quite confident that your specimen is Gloydius blomhoffi brevicaudus.

Regards,

---Nightflight99

PS: While previewing this post, it became apparent that a certain Japanese researcher seems to have a rather vulgar name...:p