Agkistrodon howardgloydi

Agkistrodon howardgloydi is a species of pit viper, a venomous snake in the subfamily Crotalinae in the family Viperidae. The subspecies is endemic to Central America. The specific name, howardgloydi, is in honor of American herpetologist Howard K. Gloyd. Of the ten specimens of A. howardgloydi available to Gloyd and Conant (1990) from Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the largest male was 96 cm (37 3⁄4 in) and the largest female 82 cm (32 1⁄4 in) in total length (including tail). According to Villa (1984), adults in Nicaragua almost never exceed 135 cm (53 1⁄4 in) in length. In both sexes, the tail length is 19% of the total body length. Scalation includes 23 rows of keeled dorsal scales at midbody; 128-135 ventral scales; and 54-61 subcaudal scales, roughly half of which are paired, especially towards the tail tip. The dorsal color pattern consists of light to medium reddish brown ground color overlaid with 10-14/13-17 broad brown or brownish crossbands in males/females. Large adult males tend to be melanistic. Juveniles are more lightly colored, even to the point of being bright red. The head is clearly marked on either side with two longitudinal light lines: the upper one is narrow and broken or even absent posterior to the supraocular scale; while the lower one is wider and split into two parts which may or may not meet at the suture of the third supralabial scale. A. howardgloydi is found in the dry Pacific lowlands of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The type locality given is '0.8 km north Mirador el Cañon del Tigre, Parque Nacional Santa Rosa, Provincia Guanacaste, Costa Rica'. A. howardgloydi was elevated to full species status as A. howardgloydi by Porras et al. in 2013.