The Habu is the name used for a number of species of poisonous snakes found in the Okinawan islands. Usually not aggressive, they bite if provoked.

The Habus are all pit vipers. They belong to the genus Trimeresurus whose other member are found in southeast Asia. Four species have the name habu:

• Himehabu Trimeresurus okinavensis (formerly classified in genus Ovophis)
• Sakishima habu Trimeresurus elegans
• Habu Trimeresurus flavoviridis
• Tokarahabu Trimeresurus tokarensis

The habu does not properly hibernate (in Okinawa, at least) during the winter, but is more active from April to late fall. Okinawa residents are advised to keep weeds trimmed and avoid loose lumber close to their dwellings, or anything in general that attracts the rodents upon which they feed.

In Okinawa after the American occupation, when A-12s (and the later the SR-71 Blackbird) planes were flown out of Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, the locals thought the strange and dangerous-looking planes looked like a habu, dubbing it the Habu.

The habu was a prime player in a Japanese kiddie story called Miki the Mongoose. Bottles of (very expensive) "Habu wine" are widely sold in Naha, the capital of Okinawa prefecture; the habu venom present in the wine (along with a dead snake on the bottom) is reputed to increase male virility.

Habu Kurage (Kurage means Jellyfish in Japanese) is the name used in Okinawa for the specie of poisonous Box jellyfish Chiropsalmus quadrigatus.

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