Black viper: differences, features and habitat

A black viper was for a long time considered a species of an ordinary viper. However, with a more careful study of the snake, it was separated into a separate species and named in honor of the zoologist Nikolsky (Vipera nikolskii).

The black viper has a more slender physique than the ordinary one. The body reaches a length of 765 mm, the tail - 80 mm. Males are slightly smaller than females. The head is wide, large, clearly delimited from the neck and slightly flattened. Iris of the eyes is black . Adult snakes are always black, as seen in the photo. The viper on the upper lobe can sometimes have white spots. The bottom of the tail of the snake is yellow-orange or yellow. Young individuals have a gray-brown color with a zigzag on the back of a brown color. By three years of life, the pattern disappears, the color becomes dark.

The black adder lives in the forest-steppe and steppe regions of the European part of Russia and Ukraine (left-bank). The snake is noted in Voronezh, Tambov, Penza, Saratov regions. It occurs in the valley of the Don River and its basin. In the northeast the habitat range extends to the foothills of the Middle and Southern Urals.

Viper black usually adheres to broad-leaved forests and oak forests. In the summer, it can be found on glades, glades and fringes. It prefers floodplain landscapes of the rivers Raven, Medveditsa, Khoper, Don, Seversky Donets and Samara. Summer and wintering habitats, apparently, are the same. In wet areas at 1 km² there are more than 500 species. The black viper begins to show activity near the middle of spring. Mating takes place in May, and in August the female has young (8-24 live individuals). The color of young snakes begins to darken after the first molt.

Viper Nikolsky is most active in the daytime. The main food of the snake is small rodents and (to a lesser extent) birds, frogs and lizards. In rare cases (most likely, with extreme food shortages), a black viper can eat fish or carrion. The biology of this species has not been studied well enough.

Black viper in comparison with snake-like snakes moves more slowly, however it floats very well. In dangerous situations, takes an s-shaped stand, hisses and makes attacks in the direction of the offender. The viper of Nikolsky is poisonous. For a person, her bites are very painful, but the victims recover after a few days. The poison is a mixture of protein substances, enzymes and inorganic components. It acts destructively on the tissue, paralyzes the nervous system and helps to coagulate the blood. Caught individuals release a liquid from the cloaca with a repulsive odor.

For a long time, this snake was considered a dark form of an ordinary viper, based on the fact that in all its populations there is a certain percentage of melanists. However, after careful study of the ecology and morphology of this snake, she was given a species status. This greatly increased the interest of specialists in its study. But opinions differ so far. Some scientists continue to regard this snake as merely a subspecies of the basic form.