[1][2] The specific name, hemprichii, is in honor of German naturalist Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich.

It is a cryptic species living in leaf litter of the forest floor.

[1] Hemprich's coral snake feeds heavily on velvet worms,[4] but also on small snakes and amphisbaenids.

[1] M. hemprichii is found in the upper Amazon Basin, Guiana Highlands, and upper Orinoco Basin in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana,Guyana, Peru, Suriname, and Venezuela.

[2] Nota bene: A trinomial authority in parentheses indicates that the subspecies was originally described in a genus other than Micrurus.