Fig. 1

Photographs of the two parental species and a hybrid between them. a Protobothrops flavoviridis. b P. flavoviridis x P. elegans hybrid. c Protobothrops elegans. Protobothrops flavoviridis, as the name implies, has a yellow-green ground color, whereas P. elegans tends to be more orange to red, and head markings are quite different. Protobothrops flavoviridis is also much larger, reaching a maximum length of 2.5 m. The intermediate markings and color of the hybrids provided the impetus for an investigation of their venom chemistry