The green pit viper may not be more lethal than Russell’s viper, the saw-scaled viper, the spectacled cobra or the common krait. But what it injects from its poison glands often renders the polyvalent antivenom derived from the venom of the other four ineffective.
The monocled cobra, the banded krait, the lesser black krait, the great black krait, the mountain pit viper and the redneck keelback are among 15 venomous snakes out of 64 species recorded so far across the northeast. Most of the snakebite cases in the region involve different species of the green pit viper, bringing up the other venomous snakes.
The hemotoxic venom a green pit viper injects prevents the blood in the body of a bitten person from clotting, leading to internal bleeding. “Hardly any of the cases we have been fatal. But we cannot draw an inference as very little data on such snakebites are available,” Guwahati-based herpetologist Jayaditya Purkayastha said.
