Ahaetulla prasina
species of reptile
Ahaetulla prasina is an arboreal, moderately venomous species of opisthoglyphous vine snake in the family Colubridae, found in Southern and Southeast Asia. Its common names include the Asian vine snake, Boie's whip snake, Gunther's whip snake, and the Oriental whip snake (Tagalog: puno ng ubas ahas; Thai: งูเขียวหัวจิ้งจก; Indonesian: ular anggur).
Etymology
The species name prasina is from the Greek word prasinos for the color green.
Taxonomy
It belongs to the genus Ahaetulla, one of five genera within the subfamily Ahaetuliinae. Recent studies have found it to be paraphyletic and in need of taxonomic revision, as shown in the cladogram below:
Subspecies
Four subspecies are recognized, including the nominate race.
Ahaetulla prasina medioxima Lazell, 2002
Ahaetulla prasina preocularis (Taylor, 1922): Philippine Islands, including Sulu Archipelago, Panay, Luzon.
Ahaetulla prasina prasina (Boie, 1827)
Ahaetulla prasina suluensis Gaulke, 1994: Philippine Islands, Sulu Archipelago
Distribution
This snake has a wide distribution in Asia, where it occurs in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Burma, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Description
The body form is extremely slender with a long, pointed, projecting snout that is rather more than twice as long as the eye. Adult colouration varies from light brown to dull yellow-green and often a startling fluorescent green. Adults may attain 1.8 m (6 feet) in total length, with a tail 0.6 m (2 feet) long.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Ahaetulla prasina” is species of reptile. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Ahaetulla, prasina and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1551982. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2002, 1922, 1827 and 1994.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ahaetulla prasina” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.