A 12.5 inch long male sub-adult Mountain Pit Viper (Ovophis monticola) was rescued from some teenage boys who were trying to kill it on the spot, mistaking it to be a baby Burmese Python, while another person named Achiong Kwan, a local resident of Rupai, Doomdoma, Assam saved it from the boys. The snake was found inside an old plastic bottle without the lid cover when those boys located it.
This plastic bottle was one of the scrap items that were usually collected from various parts of eastern Arunachal Pradesh and eastern Assam regions, like Changlang, Tirap, Tezu, Namsai, Hailung, insukia District etc. Achiong Kwan brought the snake to the notice of Khyanjeet Gogoi, Biology teacher of Rupai High School, who is a well-known Orchid specialist as well as a renowned naturalist. Mr. Gogoi then contacted Mr. Rajib Rudra Tariang, a renowned herpetologist of this region who is also the Asst. Professor in the Department of Zoology of Digboi College. Tariang identified it to be the venomous Mountain Pit Viper which is a very rare species of snake and only 500 of them are believed to have been sighted till date.
This snake lives usually in a hilly habitat that ranges from 600 msl to 2600 msl. in high altitude tracks of tropical forest, where stream water flows perennially. With this record, the checklist of snake species recorded to be is 49 species alone in Tinsukia District of Assam, where 66 species were recorded from entire Assam. The snake was handed over to the Doomdoma Forest Division for the record and later released to nature after consulting with the various experts in this field.
Various herpetologists like Dr. Saibal Sengupta, Mr. Ashok Captain, Dr. Firoz Ahmed, Dr. Abhijit Das, Anand Wats, Vivek Sarma, H. T. Lalrehmsanga, Dr. Jayaditya Purkhyastha of India and Gernot Vogel from Germany were also consulted before the snake was released into the wild.
As per recent records, this snake is found in Northeast Indian pockets like Gandhigram, Vijaynagar of Namdapha and in Miao between 247 msl to 1247 msl. and also in Dima Hasao district, Nagaland and Meghalaya. This species is also found in other countries like Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia (Sumatra), Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Taiwan, Province of China, Thailand and Vietnam. This terrestrial and nocturnal species inhabits in a variety of environment including forests, shrub lands and grasslands, but it usually prefers mountainous rocky areas in which the species can take refuge.
It can also be found in agricultural land and even within human settlements. In Nepal, the species prefers moist conditions at moderate altitudes. This is a large and broad-bodied species which exhibits sexual dimorphism and rodents make up the bulk of its prey. As per IUCN category, this species is listed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, and has no major widespread threats.