Montivipera kuhrangica Rajabizadeh, Nilson & Kami, 2011

Eskandarzadeh, Naeimeh, Rastegar-Pouyani, Nasrullah, Rastegar-Pouyani, Eskandar, Fathinia, Behzad, Bahmani, Zahed, Hamidi, Kordiyeh & Gholamifard, Ali, 2018, Annotated checklist of the endemic Tetrapoda species of Iran, Zoosystema 40 (24), pp. 507-537 : 526

Montivipera kuhrangica Rajabizadeh, Nilson & Kami, 2011

Montivipera kuhrangica Rajabizadeh, Nilson & Kami, 2011: 235 .

COMMON NAME. — Kuhrang Mountain Viper.

HOLOTYPE. — ZMGU2203 .

TYPE LOCALITY. — Tulip valley (Dashte Lale) (32°36’N, 50°11’E), North East of Chelgerd village, Kuhrang region, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province.

DISTRIBUTION. — Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari Province.

HABITAT. — High elevated mountain valley with medium to high density of vegetation.

IUCN. — Not evaluated.

REFERENCES. — Rajabizadeh et al. (2011); Rastegar-Pouyani et al. (2014); Stümpel et al. (2016).

REMARK

Rajabizadeh et al. (2011) described this species based on unique color pattern and morphological characters. A molecular study by Rastegar-Pouyani et al. (2014) suggested that the three species Montivipera kuhrangica Rajabizadeh, Nilson & Kami, 2011 ; M. Latifi (Mertens, Darewsky & Klemmer, 1967) and M. albicornuta (Nilsen & Andren, 1985) all are belonging to M. raddei (Boettger, 1890) . Another phylogenetic study conducted by Stümpel et al. (2016) suppose that M. kuhrangica and M. latifi are as valid taxa.