does anyone own or know of any Ermia mangshanensis the mang mountain viper from china?

lee

No but they are stunning snakes, you could try Shropshire Exotics they have large collections with many contacts

good luck

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"Never underestimate the power of venom"
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dave@midlandsreptiles.com

isnt it, Zhaoermia mangshanensis? I enquired to someone the other day about them apparently theres 3 in the country and they cost something like £3000

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ok cheers, yeah they are wonderful snakes...however they are a bit pricey.

not sure if thats the genus name or not. i enquired about them an it came up as ermia. i know that they used to be classified in the trimeresaurus group.

Interestingly, although they have been Ehemia and Zhymeia in the hobby they are currently, and have been since 1993 classified as ehemia (Zhang 1990 *) Prior to that, they were Trimesaurus. No zhymeia to be found In my references.

Only discribed 17 years ago, they are very very new to the reptile world, and the hobby.

They can be obtained without too much difficulty, and the price is around the £3500 mark, each, but they have sold for as much as 10k a pair.

Al has kept them so may be in a better position to answer questions.
YouTube - Zhaoermia mangshanensis
YouTube - Mangshan Pitviper Feeding

They are reported to be able to spit venom, but talking to 3 seperate people who have kept the species, leads me to belive that they are not spitting, like a cobra, but more dribbling. A rattlesnake can inject venom during the strike which will cause it to splatter forward a small distance, and its seems most likely that they are doing this.
Cheers
Dan

(*McDiarmid RW, Campbell JA, Touré T. 1999. Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, vol. 1. Herpetologists' League.)

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They're definitely classified as Zhaoermia now since Gumprecht's study in 2004...(Zhaoermia mangshanensis — Gumprecht, A.; Tillack, F.; Orlov, N.L.; Captain, A. & Ryabow, S. 2004. Asian pitvipers. Geitje Books, Berlin, 368 pp)

cheers,

Rob

they are my favourite hot, hopefully one day I might keep them, they get pretty big dont they.

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2 meters and upwards dude and can weight up to 4.5kgs

My appologies.

My reference was printed in 1999 so i was unawear of the more recent reclasification.

internet resources are sketchy at best.

Thanks RMG for the correction.

Dan

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