Habu

Habu (Protobothrops flavoviridis) is a large venomous pit viper with a broad head and yellow-green to brown patterned body, known locally in Okinawa as habu. Identification should combine documented pattern, scalation, body form and locality because related Japanese reptiles may be very similar. Claims here are limited to the opened species accounts (Wikipedia, general species account; Reptile Database). Field identification should therefore remain cautious wherever photographs or diagnostic measurements are unavailable.

It is endemic to Japan's Ryukyu Islands and belongs to the heat-sensing pit-viper subfamily Crotalinae; no valid subspecies are recognised. Information absent from those species-level sources is omitted rather than inferred from relatives. Japanese occurrence follows the site's catalogue and the opened distribution accounts (Wikipedia, general species account; Reptile Database). This conservative treatment keeps unresolved parts of its natural history clearly visible to readers.