SafekipediaViperinae
Adapted from Wikipedia · Adventurer experience
Viperinae, or viperines, are a special group of vipers. You can find them in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Unlike some other snakes, they do not have heat-sensing pit organs. This makes them different from another group called the Crotalinae.
Today, scientists know of 13 different groups, or genera, within Viperinae. Most of these snakes live in warm, tropical, or subtropical areas. One kind, called Vipera berus, can even live inside the Arctic Circle. Like all vipers, these snakes have venom.
People sometimes call them "pitless vipers," "true vipers," "Old World vipers," or "true adders." These are all names for this interesting family of snakes.
Description
Viperines are a group of snakes found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They come in different sizes. Some, like Bitis schneideri, are small, growing up to about 280 mm (11 in) long. Others, like the Gaboon viper, can be over 2 m (6.6 ft) long. Most of these snakes live on the ground, but a few, like those in the genus Atheris, live in trees.
Unlike some other snakes, viperines do not have special heat-sensing pits. But they have a special sac above their nose that helps them sense their surroundings. This sac is connected to nerves in their faces and can detect warmth, helping them find targets.
Geographic range
Viperinae live in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They do not live in Madagascar.
Reproduction
Most vipers in this group give birth to live babies, a process called being ovoviviparous. A few types, like Pseudocerastes, Cerastes, and some species of Echis, lay eggs instead.
Genera
| Genus | Taxon author | Species | Common name | Geographic range |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atheris | Cope, 1862 | 18 | Bush vipers | Tropical sub-Saharan Africa, excluding southern Africa. |
| Bitis | Gray, 1842 | 18 | Puff adders | Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula. |
| Cerastes | Laurenti, 1768 | 3 | Horned vipers | North Africa eastward through Arabia and Iran. |
| Daboia | Gray, 1842 | 4 | Day adders | Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, China (Guangxi and Guangdong), Taiwan and Indonesia (Ende, Flores, East Java, Komodo, Lomblen islands). |
| Echis | Merrem, 1820 | 12 | Saw-scaled vipers | India and Sri Lanka, parts of the Middle East and Africa north of the equator. |
| Eristicophis | Alcock and Finn, 1897 | 1 | McMahon's viper | The desert region of Balochistan near the Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan border. |
| Macrovipera | Reuss, 1927 | 2 | Large Palearctic vipers | Semideserts and steppes of Northern Africa, the Near and Middle East, and Milos in the Aegean Sea. |
| Montatheris | Broadley, 1996 | 1 | Kenya mountain viper | Kenya: moorlands of the Aberdare Range and Mount Kenya above 3,000 m (9,800 ft). |
| Montivipera | Nilson, Tuniyev, Andren, Orlov, Joger, & Herrmann, 1999 | 8 | Upland vipers | Middle East |
| Proatheris | Broadley, 1996 | 1 | Lowland viper | Floodplains from southern Tanzania (northern end of Lake Malawi) through Malawi to near Beira, central Mozambique. |
| Pseudocerastes | Boulenger, 1896 | 3 | False-horned vipers | From the Sinai of Egypt eastward to Pakistan. |
| Vipera | Laurenti, 1768 | 21 | Palearctic vipers | Great Britain and nearly all of continental Europe across the Arctic Circle and on some islands in the Mediterranean (Elba, Montecristo, Sicily) and Aegean Sea eastward across Northern Asia to Sakhalin and North Korea. Also found in Northern Africa in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. |
Taxonomy
In the last 50 years, scientists found that two groups of snakes, once part of the Viperinae family, are so different that they got their own small families. These groups are now called the Azemiopinae family and the Causinae family.
Even with these changes, many people still call all these groups, including the Viperinae, "true vipers." In 1996, a scientist named Broadley made a new group called Atherini for some special types within the Viperinae.
Related articles
This article is a child-friendly adaptation of the Wikipedia article on Viperinae, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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