SafekipediaViperinae
Adapted from Wikipedia · Discoverer experience
Viperinae, or viperines, are a special group of vipers found only in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Unlike some of their relatives, they do not have heat-sensing pit organs. This helps set them apart from another group called the Crotalinae.
Today, scientists recognize 13 different groups, or genera, within Viperinae. Most of these snakes live in warm, tropical, or subtropical areas, but one kind, called Vipera berus, can even be found 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," all names that refer to this interesting family of snakes.
Description
Viperines are a group of snakes found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. They vary in size from small, like Bitis schneideri, which grows up to about 280 mm (11 in), to very large, like the Gaboon viper, which 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 up in trees.
Unlike some other snakes, viperines do not have special heat-sensing pits. However, 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 warmer targets to strike.
Geographic range
Viperinae live in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but they are not found in Madagascar.
Reproduction
Most vipers in this group give birth to live babies, a process called being ovoviviparous. However, 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
Over the past 50 years, scientists have noticed that two groups of snakes, once part of the Viperinae family, are so unique that they were given their own smaller families. These groups are now called the Azemiopinae family and the Causinae family.
Even with these changes, many people still use the name "true vipers" for all these groups together, including the Viperinae. In 1996, a scientist named Broadley created a new group called Atherini for some special genera 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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