Gloydius intermedius

---

title: "Gloydius intermedius" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["gloydius", "snakes-of-afghanistan", "reptiles-of-azerbaijan", "snakes-of-china", "reptiles-of-central-asia", "reptiles-of-mongolia", "reptiles-of-russia", "reptiles-described-in-1868", "snakes-of-iran"] description: "Species of snake" topic_path: "geography/china" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloydius_intermedius" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Species of snake ::

| image = Gloydius intermedius by Nick Longrich.jpg | image_caption = In Gobi Desert, Mongolia | taxon = Gloydius intermedius | authority = (Strauch, 1868) | synonyms =

• Trigonocephalus halys – Ménétries, 1832 (part)
• Trigonocephalus blomhoffii – Maack, 1859 (part)
• Trigonocephalus affinis – Günther, 1860 (part)
• Trigonocephalus intermedius Strauch, 1868
• Halys intermedius – W. Peters, 1877
• Ancistrodon intermedius – Boulenger, 1896
• Agkistrodon blomhoffii intermedius – Stejneger, 1907
• Ancistrodon blomhoffii intermedius – Despax, 1913
• Ancistrodon halys intermedius – Nikolski, 1916
• Agkistrodon halys intermedius – Stejneger, 1925
• Ankistrodon halys intermedius – Pavloff, 1926
• Agkistrodon intermedius – F. Werner, 1929
• Ancistrodon halys intermedius viridis – Pavloff, 1932 (nomen illegitimum)
• Gloydius halys intermedius – Hoge & Romano-Hoge, 1981
• Agkistrodon intermedius intermedius – Gloyd & Conant, 1982
• Gloydius intermedius – Kraus, Mink & W.M. Brown, 1996

Gloydius intermedius, or Central Asian pit viper, is a venomous species of pitviper endemic to northern Asia.

Description

Gloyd and Conant (1990) reported examining subadults and adults of G. intermedius that were 33.5 – in total length. Nikolsky (1916) mentioned that some individuals may reach as much as 78 cm in total length. The body is relatively stout, and the snout is not upturned.

The scalation includes 7 supralabial scales, 23 rows of keeled dorsal scales at midbody, 149-165 ventral scales, and 32-48 subcaudal scales.

The color pattern is variable, but generally consists of 28-45 dark subquadrate dorsal blotches or crossbands that usually extend down the flanks as far as the first or second scale rows. Between these blotches are irregular light areas. A dark brown to black postorbital stripe is present, extending from the eye back to the angle of the jaw, outlined by a light line above, and by cream-colored supralabial scales below.

Common names

Common names for G. intermedius include Central Asian pit viper, intermediate mamushi, Mongolian pit viper, Central Asian pitviper.

Previous Subspecies

The status of previous subspecies is controversial, but none are currently recognised, with G. caucasicus and G. stejnegeri being elevated to full species.

Geographic range

G. intermedius is found in southeastern Azerbaijan, northern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, northwestern Afghanistan, southern Russia, Korea, northwestern China and Mongolia. The type locality given by Stejneger (1907) is "Governm. Irkutsk, East Siberia." Golay et al. (1993) give "Yesso (= Esso) Island, banks of Amur River and Khinggan (= Hinggan Ling) Mountain Range."

References

References

1. [[:fr:Roy Wallace McDiarmid. McDiarmid RW]], [[Jonathan A. Campbell. Campbell JA]], [[T'Shaka A. Touré. Touré TA]] (1999). ''Snake Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference, Volume 1''. Washington, District of Columbia: Herpetologists' League. 511 pp. {{ISBN. 1-893777-00-6 (series). {{ISBN. 1-893777-01-4 (volume).
2. {{ITIS
3. [[Howard K. Gloyd. Gloyd HK]], [[Roger Conant (herpetologist). Conant R]] (1990). ''Snakes of the ''Agkistrodon'' Complex: A Monographic Review''. Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. 614 pp. 52 plates. LCCN 89-50342. {{ISBN. 0-916984-20-6.
4. [[Andreas Gumprecht. Gumprecht A]], [[Frank Tillack. Tillack F]], [[:fr:Nikolaï Orlov. Orlov NL]], [[Ashok Captain. Captain A]], [[Sergei A. Ryabov. Ryabov S]] (2004). ''Asian Pitvipers''. First Edition. Berlin: Geitje Books. 368 pp. {{ISBN. 3-937975-00-4.
5. "Gloydius stejnegeri".
6. (2018-04-03). "Phylogenetic position of Iranian pitvipers (Viperidae, Crotalinae, Gloydius) inferred from mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences". Tropical Zoology.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::