Bitis is a genus of vipers found in Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula.

Members are known for their characteristic threat displays that involve inflating and deflating their bodies while hissing and puffing loudly.

[2] The type species for this genus is B. arietans,[1] which is also the most widely distributed viper in Africa.

Size variation within this genus is extreme, ranging from the very small B. schneideri, which grows to a maximum of 28 cm (11 in) and is perhaps the world's smallest viperid, to the very large B. gabonica, which can attain a length over 2 m (6.6 ft) and is the heaviest viper in the world.

[2] All have a wide, triangular head with a rounded snout, distinct from the neck, and covered in small, keeled, imbricated scales.

[1] Bitis species are known for their behavior of inflating and deflating their bodies in loud hissing or puffing threat displays.

[2] In contrast to the pitvipers of the subfamily Crotalinae, Bitis species appear to lack heat-sensitive organs and showed no differences in their behavior in laboratory tests towards warm and cool objects that mimicked prey.

Lenk et al. (1999) used molecular data (immunological distances and mitochondrial DNA sequences) to estimate the phylogenetic relationships among species of Bitis.