Trimeresurus venom varies in toxicity between species, but all are primarily hemotoxic and considered to be medically significant to humans.

Species in the genus Trimeresurus are found in Southeast Asia from India (including regions of the North Chotanagpur division of Jharkhand) to Southern China and Japan, and the Malay Archipelago to Timor.

[1] Additional species that may be recognized by other sources include:[11] The genus Trimeresurus (sensu lato) has been the subject of considerable taxonomic work since 2000, resulting in the recognition of additional genera within this complex.

Most authors now recognise the genus Protobothrops for the species cornutus, flavoviridis, jerdonii, kaulbacki, mucrosquamatus, tokarensis, xiangchengensis,[12][13][14] since these have been shown not to be closely related to other Trimeresurus in recent phylogenetic analyses.

In addition, Malhotra and Thorpe (2004)[13] proposed a radical shake up of the entire genus, splitting Trimeresurus into seven genera.