This snake was first discovered during a herpetological expedition in the summer of 2019 to the Eastern Himalayas in Arunachal Pradesh, India, which is a biodiversity hotspot and has a high degree of landscape heterogeneity with elevation ranging from 100 to 7000 m and distinct climatic regimes.

[5] The researchers also found two specimens of the new species in the Natural History Museum of Denmark which had been collected by a Danish naturalist, Bernt Wilhelm Westermann, between 1811 and 1816[6] but were wrongly labeled as white-lipped pit vipers.

[1] Salazar's pit viper has a long and thin body with a length reaching 363 to 415 mm,[11] and a triangular, elongated head which is clearly distinct from the neck.

[15] The appearance of T. salazar is different to the T. albolabris, T. septentrionalis, and the T. insularis because of the greater number of pterygoid and dentary teeth, the reddish-orange head stripe in the males and the smaller size of its hemipenis.

[12][15] Salazar's pit vipers have been found at an elevation of 172 metres above sea level in the Eastern Himalayas,[17] in the lowlands of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh in India.

[22] The species was later documented near Lumang in the Tashigang Territorial Forest Division in eastern Bhutan[23] and in Jashpur district, Chhattisgarh.

[7] The diet of pit vipers in the genus Trimeresurus includes lizards, amphibians, birds, rodents, and other small mammals.