dendrelaphis kopsteini - a new Bronzeback Snake

In Zootaxa 1394: 25-45 2007 a new species of Dendrelaphis snake is named.

A new species of Dendrelaphis (Serpentes: Colubridae) from Southeast Asia - Gernot Vogel and Johan Van Rooijen detail the species and give it the designation Dendrelaphis kopsteini.

The image attached is not of the new species description, rather Dendrelaphis formosus, but does show the striking appearance of these snakes. These snakes are also referred to at times as Bronzeback snakes or Tree Snakes due to their coloration. They are found in parts of Australia, Asia and New Guinea. These are not poisonous snakes.

From the abstract:

A new species of the colubrid genus Dendrelaphis Boulenger 1890 is described .Dendrelaphis kopsteini sp. nov. rangesfrom Thailand through Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore to Sumatra. A detailed statistical analysis of the differences between D. kopsteini sp. nov., D. formosus (Boie, 1827) and D. cyanochloris (Wall, 1921) is provided as the three spe­cies have been mixed up frequently in the literature. D. kopsteini sp. nov. differs from all other Dendrelaphis species by a brick red neck coloration . A neotype is designated and described for D. formosus and a lectotype is designated and described for D. cyanochloris.