Chinese order: Serpentes

Chinese family: Viperidae

Chinese genus: Mangshan Branded Ironhead

Chinese common name: No Chinese common name

Latin name: Zhaoermia mangshanensis

English name: None at present

Species name and date: Zhao, 1990

Species information: Up to 2m in length.

Species nomenclator and date: Zhao, 1990

Species information: A venomous snake up to 2 m in length with tubular teeth. Body black-brown, interspersed with very small yellow-green or rust-colored dots, forming a fine reticulated impression; dorsal scales partly yellow-green, aggregated in clusters, forming lichen-like spots, equidistant from black-brown, running longitudinally across the tail of the body; left and right lichen-like spots meet in the midline of the dorsal surface to form a complete transverse stripe or a slightly staggered pattern anteriorly and posteriorly. Ventral surface, in addition to the aforementioned black-brown with reticulation, is also interspersed with a number of larger, slightly triangular, yellowish-green spots. The dorsum of the head is blackish brown with typical yellowish-green markings. The posterior half of the tail is a uniform pale yellowish green or nearly white. The head is large, triangular, and distinct from the nape. There are buccal fossae. The dorsum of the head is covered with small scales, the larger pair of inter-nasal scales being tangential to each other. Middle dorsal scales in 25 rows, all angulate except the outermost row on both sides; ventral scales 187～198; anal scales complete; subcaudal scales 60～67 pairs, tail laterally compressed with flat cut ends. Endemic to China. Currently only known to occur in a narrow area of a few thousand hectares in the Mangshan Nature Reserve in Yizhang County, Hunan Province, China. It is found in the understory of mountainous areas at an altitude of 700-1100 m. It lays 20-27 eggs in late June and July, which are white, oval, 34-38 mm × 50-66 mm in diameter, and weigh 31-40 g. The parent snakes have the habit of guarding and incubating the eggs after they are laid. Under the temperature of 25°～30°C, the baby snakes will hatch out in about 60 days, and the total length of the first hatched baby snakes is 330～460mm, and the weight is 15～35g.

Note: The genus Mangshan Branded Snake was originally known as Ermia (Zhang, 1993), which was replaced by Zhaoermia (Gumprecht and Tillack, 2004) in 2004.

Related reports can be found in Sichuan Zoology, Issue 3, 2004

url]Mangshan Mountain, in the middle part of the South Ridge of China, with high mountains and deep valleys, and lush forests, maintains the most primitive cycle of life due to the scarcity of people. In the depths of the forest, thick dead leaves accumulate on the jungle floor, and the collapsed and decayed tree trunks maintain the posture of the last moments of the end of life, becoming a paradise for all kinds of mosses. The sunlight is blocked by the dense canopy and can only flicker in glimpses, and the fog is vortexed by the mountain gullies and valleys, and the mountain forests are shrouded in a cloud of mist all year round. The climate of Mangshan Mountain was warm and humid, a climate and environment best suited to the survival of snakes.

Now Mangshan is the kingdom of snakes. Snakes are a species on earth much older than human beings. It is speculated that there were probably snakes in the Jurassic period, 150 million years ago. In other words, the Mangshan Mountains, which arose during the Yanshan orogenic movement, have been a habitat for snakes since their birth. There is also a mysterious giant venomous snake hidden in this Mangshan Mountain for thousands of years.

In Mangshan Mountain, there lives an ancient and mysterious mountain nation, the Yao. In the songs handed down from their ancestors, the Yao people of Mangshan are described as the direct descendants of Fuxi female snails. The Fuxi female snail was an immortal with a human face and a snake's body, and the Yao people inherited a part of their human nature, while their serpentine nature was inherited by a kind of snake called "Little Green Dragon", which, according to legend, is huge in size and has a white tail. Yao people feel that they and the "small green dragon" is a mother born of brothers, is spiritual, it is worshiped as a totem, Yao people have been living in the deep mountains and creeks, although and their brothers have never met, but the Yao people are convinced that their brothers and they *** with living in the vast mountains.