The common viper (in Latin Vipera berus) is a poisonous reptile. It belongs to the class of reptiles, the viper family (Viperidae - in Latin Viperidae). The size of the reptile is small - the body length is not more than 60-70 cm, weight 50-180 g, females are larger than males.

Photo and description of the common viper

The round-triangular head of this reptile is covered with small scales. irregular shape, the nose is blunt. The ear zones, where the venom-producing glands are located, protrude noticeably. The head is visually clearly separated from the neck.

The eyes of these reptiles are small. In the photo of the viper taken close-up, you can see that the vertical pupils can narrow into a strip and expand to the entire eye. This allows the snake to see perfectly both in daylight and in complete darkness. Above the eyes are scaly ridges, giving the muzzle an evil look. Appearance viper looks like another non-venomous snake- . It is quite easy to confuse them, but there are still a number of significant differences.

The color of vipers depends on the habitat and is different. This is inherent in nature and gives the reptile the opportunity to merge with the landscape and be invisible to victims and enemies. The back can be black, light gray, copper, brown-yellow, reddish-brown. Some other types of snakes fit the description of the common viper. But hallmark vipers is a zigzag stripe pattern along the entire back. The belly of the snake is gray, brownish or black, sometimes with whitish spots. The tip of the tail is reddish, orange or bright yellow.

The properties of poison and the bite of a viper

Vipers have two long (up to 4 cm) poisonous fangs in their mouths on the upper jaw. They are mobile - during the bite of a snake, as it were, they chew the victim's skin with them. In a calm state, these teeth fold inward, becoming less visible.

The venom of the common viper acts in such a way that, getting into the blood of a living being, it gives a hemolytic effect, and causes local tissue necrosis at the site of the bite. The neurotoxin in its composition has a detrimental effect on the functions of the heart and blood vessels. But the bite of a common viper only in rare cases leads to the death of a person. For human body the concentration of poisonous substances is low, and the dose of poison injected is small enough to cause serious harm to health. Children and animals (forest and domestic) can suffer. After a bite, shock and anemia in an acute form can occur, blood clots form.

First aid for the bite of a common viper is to ensure that the part of the body in which the snake has bitten is completely calm. This is necessary so that the poison does not spread further through the body. For example, a bitten leg or arm should be tightly bandaged with a piece of cloth and fixed with improvised means (put a splint). Then the victim must be taken to the hospital as soon as possible - a reaction to poison can occur within 15-20 minutes.

Range and living conditions in nature

Snakes of this species are found in forests almost throughout Eurasia, these are:

  • Great Britain,
  • in Europe - from France to the west of Italy,
  • Korea,
  • Greece,
  • Turkey,
  • Albania.

The snake lives in the Arctic - in Lapland and on the shores Barents Sea. Also a common sight is the common viper in Russia. Here its habitat is Siberia, the Far East and Transbaikalia.

The area where the reptile settles is the banks of rivers, lakes and swamps, mixed and coniferous forests, glades and fallen trees overgrown with tall grass. The snake is able to exist at an altitude of up to 3 thousand meters above sea level.

Sometimes vipers settle in forest parks in the city, abandoned rural buildings, basements of village houses, and overgrown gardens. When visiting such places, you need to be extremely careful not to run into a snake.

Lifestyle and habits

These snakes choose the territory for residence forever, and then leave it no further than 100 m. But in the autumn and spring periods they can migrate, having covered a distance of 5 kilometers, and not necessarily by land. The viper is able to swim a considerable distance through the water.

Vipers become active in late spring. The first, when the sun begins to warm up, males appear from the holes - for them the temperature of +19-24°C is already comfortable. Females need an air temperature of at least + 28 ° C.

During the day, vipers are inactive - they sit in shelters or bask in the sun on stones and stumps.

For hunting they are accepted with the onset of twilight. At the same time, they become swift, dexterous - they tirelessly examine the surroundings in search of prey. Vipers have excellent eyesight and sense of smell to do this at night. Crawling into the minks of rodents, the reptile encroaches not only on the cubs. It can also attack adult animals. If it receives a rebuff, it quickly coils into a dense lump, while a head is visible from its center, then the snake is a third up and forward, towards the offender, throws out the body and hisses.

When hunting, the viper can also use expectant tactics. Hiding in a shelter, waiting for the victim. As soon as the prey is at a throwing distance, the hunt is a success.

The viper needs to eat once every two to four days. That's how long it takes to digest food.

These reptiles are not the first to show aggression towards people; when they meet a person, they try to slip away unnoticed.

How does a snake hibernate

Vipers are heat-loving animals, so they go to winter long before the first frost hits. They settle in the burrows of forest rodents and moles at a depth of 0.5-2 meters. In a climate where the common viper lives, at a given depth, the earth does not freeze through even in frosts.

Snakes hibernate in flocks of several dozen individuals, intertwining in a huge ball to keep it warmer. Hibernation lasts about 180 days.

diet

Basically, the common viper feeds on warm-blooded animals:

  • moles,
  • mice
  • small feathers.

They also eat lizards and frogs. Sometimes a reptile can eat its own brood. At one meal, the common viper eats a fairly large amount of food - 3-4 mice or frogs.

But it is easy to not eat at all from 6 to 9 months. This feature is due to the fact that during the period of activity, vipers accumulate subcutaneous fat. In addition, nature has the ability to survive, because vipers hunt in a territory that is very small in area. It happens that the food supply is simply depleted in a natural way.

Vipers get water with food and drink drops of dew and rain.

How vipers breed

Vipers become capable of producing offspring when they reach the age of 4-5 years. Mating occurs annually, except for the northern areas - there cubs appear every two years.

The mating season begins after hibernation and lasts 2-3 weeks. Mating can take place not only between two individuals, but also in a ball of ten snakes. Males are attracted by the smell of females, they fight for a partner.

There are rules for the "duel": males, being opposite each other, raise the upper halves of the body and sway. Then they rush and, intertwining their necks, strive to press the opponent to the ground so that he rolls over onto his back. But at the same time fatal bites the defeated winner does not inflict, he simply goes to fulfill his duty of procreation.

Once mating season ended, the female remains alone and bears offspring. Gestation lasts approximately 90 days. This is an ovoviviparous reptile - the eggs of the common viper are intended for the development of cubs, but they themselves break through the shells in her womb as soon as they are ready to be born. As a result of fertilization, 10-20 eggs are formed, but not all develop. Only 8-12 small snakes are born, about 16 cm long.

Having been born, the cubs can already exist on their own. From the first hour of life, they are poisonous in the same way as adult vipers, they know how to bite and protect themselves.

For 2-3 days after birth, young snakes molt. Having changed the scales, they spread and independently obtain food. Small snakes feed on worms and beetles.

AT wild nature the common viper lives up to 15 years, in captivity - up to 20 years. There are cases when in the created ideal artificial conditions vipers lived up to 30 years of age.

Who is the enemy of the viper in the wild

A badger, a fox, a ferret, a forest boar can attack a reptile. Of the birds - they are the prey of herons, eagles, owls, storks. All these animals have immunity to poisonous secretion - they eat snake meat. An animal that does not feed on snakes, but often attacks them is a hedgehog.

But natural enemies do not cause damage to viper populations, since these are normal natural processes. But man is the enemy of these snakes, he destroys natural environment their habitats:

  • swamps are drying up
  • floodplains flood,
  • suburban areas are being built up, which means a decrease in the food supply and a change in the landscape.

In Russia and some countries, the common viper is in the lists of the Red Book. The status of the animal is “Vulnerable”. Vipers are of great benefit to mankind - medicines and cosmetic preparations are produced on the basis of their poison, this snake is an object of scientific and national economic significance.

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When it comes to the dangers that await a person at every corner, they first of all remember poisonous snakes. Undoubtedly, one of the brightest and most famous representatives of this group of animals is the viper.


Viper is poisonous snake. Its body can reach up to half a meter in length. However, it can have a completely different color. Quite often you can find individuals with a yellow, copper-red, brown, gray or brown tint. United common feature for all subspecies of vipers is the presence of a dark zigzag on the back, located along the entire surface of the body. The body of the viper itself is quite thick, and females are usually slightly larger than males.


The head of the viper has a slightly flattened shape, in its upper part, as a rule, you can see three shields - frontal and two parietal. The central of them - the frontal - has an almost rectangular shape. It is located between the eyes, and a little behind it are the parietal shields. To many, the viper seems unusually vicious because of its vertical pupils, but this is due only to the peculiarities of the anatomy, and in no way affects the emotions of the snake.


common viper very widespread. Most often it is found in the steppe and forest-steppe zones, as well as in forest glades, overgrown swamps, in floodplains and on the banks of lakes overgrown with reeds. In addition, vipers can live in mountainous areas at altitudes up to 2000 meters. Sometimes individuals can gather in large clusters, called snake clusters, in which there can be about a thousand snakes per 1 hectare of land.


The habitat of vipers is limited to the European part of Russia, many regions Far East and Siberia. It is also widespread in France, Italy, Great Britain, in northern Greece and in the European part of Turkey.


The mating season for vipers begins in mid-May and ends in June. The first offspring appears in August. Vipers are ovoviviparous animals. Cubs are born already quite independent, up to 15-17 cm long and already poisonous. Newborn vipers almost immediately experience their first molt. In the future, snakes molt 1-2 times a month.


Vipers eat a wide variety of food. Their diet depends on the time of year and habitat. The largest part of the viper menu is made up of small mouse-like rodents or small frogs, more often just metamorphoses from a tadpole to an adult. Vipers also prey on bird nests left unattended. They destroy such nests and eat the eggs in them. Sometimes very young chicks become victims of vipers. These snakes do not disdain adult birds of small sizes, for example, finches, as well as various small lizards, for example, spindles. Baby vipers eat insects, sometimes eating butterflies, caterpillars or earthworms. October-November is the period of the first hibernation, and vipers eat almost nothing before this, so that all the food eaten has time to be digested before hibernation.


The viper eats the chicks of the swift.

The peak of activity of vipers falls on the daytime part of the day, especially in the hot season. This time the snakes spend either in the sun, basking in the rays, or in quiet places overgrown with thick grass. When a person approaches, vipers, as a rule, flee. That is why zoologists recommend that hikers wear high boots and trousers while walking through the forest. After all, it happens that a snake (which, by the way, has very poor hearing and focuses only on vibrations) simply does not have time to hear the approach of a person, and, protecting its territory, they use poison.


“This summer, it happened that for the first time in my life I was bitten by a snake, and not by any snake or copperhead, but immediately by a viper. bitten for thumb right hand. Then I will describe how everything was, by the hour, then by date and with pictures. The bite itself is not very painful, for me, so the wasp bites more painfully. Blood flowed from the wound for 10 minutes.

The poison sucked away as much as it could while the wound was open. After 5 minutes, I felt that my forearm began to go numb and hurt a little, then my shoulder, then my second shoulder. For all 15 minutes. Then the second shoulder let go. I felt a little dizzy, but I attributed it to excitement, it went away in just a minute. After half an hour, the brush began to noticeably swell at the site of the bite. Removed all rings and bracelets. Another half an hour and I would have had to cut it.

+ 45 minutes from viper bite

An hour later, the hand swelled up completely and the tumor went higher on the forearm.

+ 1 hour 20 minutes

Leads the head a little, but not critical.

+ 2 hours

Volokolamsk, Central District Hospital - injected prednisolone intramuscularly 2 ampoules (2 ml). They don't have anything else for that. They offered to go to the hospital with them. Refused. I could only sign the waiver with a cross. I could not hold the pen - the fingers do not bend as they should.

Volokolamsk Central District Hospital

We're going to Moscow. The head is slightly spinning, if you do not spin and do not get on the bumps, it is quite normal to rulitsya.

+ 4 hours

The emergency room of a polyclinic in Moscow, about 4 hours after the bite. The hand turns blue slowly. An ambulance was called from the emergency room, which took him to the toxicological department of Sklif. On the way, they dripped one dropper.

One thing can be said about the department of acute poisoning for the mentally ill (this is where all adults with snakebites in Moscow go) one thing can be said: it is the only one in all of Moscow and it is there that everyone with squirrels and overdoses ends up. So it's not boring for sure.

Everything is taken away upon admission. The phone cannot be used. If you had any valuable things, they are handed over for collection against an inventory. At the checkout, everything was returned to me to the penny. But those who get here in an unconscious state, as a rule, are very surprised by the lack of money, keys, etc.

They immediately rolled in 3 more droppers, antibiotics and, apparently, serum. By morning, the swelling began to subside, leaving in its place bruises along the veins and in places where there are more muscles.

+ 1 day

By the end of the second day, the edema subsided completely, there was a bruise on the entire right arm. compress something right hand almost impossible.

+ 1 day. There was a bruise at night

She was released from the hospital on the third day. Next to him lay a man with a bite in his leg. He had been lying here for a week, and he was left to be treated further.

The viper's venom had such a powerful effect on his body that the skin on his leg burst from the tumor.

Discharged with adventure. They didn’t bring my things, but since I was bitten, and not a drug addict, and entered in clothes, which, in fact, is rare in this department, they sent me to another building with a note. Because of the wild heat, I went home in a T-shirt. Epic: T-shirt, tights and a hand pierced with needles. The doctors said that "nothing, everything will be ok - you have an extract from us with you, show the peeps if anything." Considering where the extract is from, the statement is controversial.

On the third day, in the evening, the injection site of the serum ached, as the surgeon said in the clinic in the morning, this is normal and for a long time. I was not mistaken ... It hurt for about a week. Home treatment was prescribed as follows:

  • ointment liaton - on the whole arm if possible (I smeared before going to bed);
  • aspirin ACC - according to the instructions.

+ 3 nights

The whole arm is one big bruise. It's not like saying hello - holding something hurts.

Droppers left traces

In addition to the usual ones (insects, moles, worms), some summer residents may be in wait for special neighbors in the country, extremely unpleasant and dangerous - these are snakes. How to get rid of vipers in their summer cottage - more on that later in the article.

Description of the pest

The viper is a venomous snake often found in our latitudes. Small in size (usually no more than half a meter), with a large flat head, the frontal shield of which is almost rectangular. These snakes have a variety of colors from gray to reddish, black vipers are also found.

A distinctive feature is the zigzag ornament on the back, clearly visible against the background of the main color. The tip of the tail is yellow, orange or red.

It lives in forests, adapts well to any terrain. The basis of food are small rodents, reptiles.

So there are some advantages from such neighbors. For those who are not ready to put up with these creatures, below we will give tips on getting rid of unwanted elements in your backyard.

How to get rid of vipers

You can get rid of vipers on the site in a humane and radical way. More about both methods below.

Radical Methods

The first thing a person thinks when they see a dark ball in the grass is how to kill a snake safely.

First way getting rid of reptiles is to eliminate nesting sites. Tidy up your yard, clean up the garbage - any pile of garbage, a board can be a reptile's refuge. Mow the surrounding areas regularly - tall grass camouflages snakes well.

An additional effect of mowing is the noise of a brushcutter or lawn mower. The reptile is sensitive to the stimulus and moves away from the source of noise.
Second method- deprivation of food sources. Destroy rodents and frogs, others that may provide food. In search of food, reptiles will leave your territory.
Third Method- physical destruction. A good service in this will be rendered to us by those who are afraid of snakes - hedgehogs and yagdterriers.

Did you know? Hedgehogs are immune to snake venom. They hunt vipers, trample them and gnaw through the spine.

- the best snake and rat hunter. Small burrowing dogs, dexterous and bold, pounce on enemies and gnaw through the backbone. The downside is the aggressiveness of animals. They must be kept in muzzles.

scare away

Scaring away will help to bring out reptiles on the site. But very often they return after the disappearance of the threat.

So, how to scare away snakes from their summer cottage?

You can play on the susceptibility of vipers to smells. Sprinkled mustard powder (about 100 g per one hundred square meters) or garlic beds in different places vegetable garden. Get rid of the shed snake skin. Reptiles return to the place where they molted.

Important! Do not pick up the skin with bare hands–don't leave your scent.

Burning grass will make the site unattractive to reptiles.

Vipers are sensitive to chemical substances. Scattered naphthalene balls (saltpeter, amophoska, any garden one), rags soaked in diesel fuel will scare away reptiles.
Use sound effects. Wind music, bells, rattles, weather vanes - all this will create a noise that reptiles do not like very much.

A good effect is the use of mole repellers. These devices generate ultrasonic waves and vibration, to which the reptiles respond. Such devices can be bought in shops of goods for fishing and tourism.

The image of the character is firmly entrenched in the common viper scary tales and nightmares, meeting with her can have unsafe consequences for a person. Meanwhile, in the lifestyle and behavior of this snake there are many noteworthy, interesting and even dramatic moments.

Description of the viper

The common viper (Vipera berus) is a representative of the Viperidae family of relatively small dimensions: the body length of the snake is usually 60-70 cm, the weight ranges from 50-180 g, while males are slightly smaller than females.

Appearance

  • Head, covered with small scales or irregularly shaped shields, has a rounded triangular shape, the nasal end with a hole cut in the middle is blunt, the temporal corners stand out noticeably to the sides - the zones of localization of paired poisonous glands.
  • small eyes with a strictly vertical pupil in combination with overhanging supraorbital ridges-scales give the viper an evil look, although this has nothing to do with the manifestation of emotions associated with aggression.
  • The maxillary bones are short, movable, equipped with 1-2 large tubular poisonous fangs and 3-4 small substitute teeth. The same small teeth are located on the palatine, pterygoid bones.
  • The head and torso are separated by a sharp cervical interception.
  • Very short and thick in the middle body viper narrows sharply towards the posterior section, turning into a short (usually 6-8 times less than the length of the body) blunt tail, which has the outlines of a comma.

Nature did not stint on colors, painting the viper. In addition to the main common gray color in males and brown in females, the following morphs are found:

  • black;
  • beige-yellow;
  • whitish silver;
  • olive brown;
  • copper red.

Most often, the coloring is non-uniform, the body of the snake is “decorated” with stripes, spots and patterns:

  • a zigzag strip running down the back;
  • dark Ʌ- or X-shaped ornament on the upper part of the head;
  • black stripes running along the sides of the head from the eyes to the corners of the mouth;
  • dark spots covering the sides of the body.

Black and red-brown vipers have no pattern on the head and body. Regardless of the main coloration, the underside of the body is dark gray or black with blurry spots, Bottom part tail - whitish-sand or yellow-orange.

It is interesting! Albino vipers are never found, unlike other snake species, in which a similar color variation, or rather, the absence of one, is observed regularly.

Any kind of coloration of the viper, regardless of the main tone, is patronizing, as it makes the snakes almost invisible against the background of the natural landscape.

Lifestyle, behavior

active phase life cycle common viper begins usually in March-April. First in sunny days males emerge from winter shelters. Most of them are found when air masses warm up to 19-24 ° C. Females for which optimum temperature environment should be higher, about 28 ° C, waiting for the onset of warmer weather.

The structure of the body, devoid of limbs and appendages, does not allow the common viper to somehow diversify its behavior: sedentary, slow and phlegmatic, the snake spends most of the daylight hours in secluded places or “taking” sunbaths on well-heated stones, stumps, fallen trees. However, an attentive observer will notice that even a viper can lie in different ways.. Relaxingly basking in the rays of the sun, she spreads her ribs to the sides, due to which the body becomes flat, forming a wide undulating surface. But if at this time something alerted the snake, its body immediately, without changing its position, becomes tense and tight, like a compressed spring.

It is interesting! At any moment, the snake is ready to either slip away from potential danger, or pounce on possible prey.

If a meeting with the enemy could not be avoided, the viper instantly twists into a tight spiral, now its body is a dense lump, from the center of which a head is visible on the S-shaped bend of the neck. Sharply throwing forward the upper third of the body, bloating and hissing intimidatingly, the snake moves with all this tangle towards the source of the threat.

The viper starts active hunting at dusk or at night. At the same time, its usual daytime behavior dramatically changes: now it is a swift and agile animal, tirelessly examining any holes, manholes, areas under tree trunks lying on the ground, dense thickets in search of prey. It helps her to find food in the dark with an excellent sense of smell and good overall vision. Penetrating into the dwellings of rodents, the viper is able to eat not only helpless cubs, but also sleeping adults.

The viper also uses a wait-and-see tactic of hunting, carefully observing potential prey that has appeared in its field of view. Sometimes a careless vole mouse can even climb onto a lying snake, which remains completely motionless until the rodent is within reach of the poisonous fangs. If the snake misses its throw, it usually does not pursue the lost prey, patiently waiting new opportunity to attack. It usually takes two to four days to digest food. All this time, the snake may not crawl out to the surface at all, remaining in its shelter.

Not hunting, the viper does not show aggression first. Therefore, when meeting with a person, if he does not take provocative actions, the snake uses its camouflage coloration, visually merging with the environment, or tends to slip away to a safe place.

Long before the onset of frost, vipers settle down in winter "apartments". A cold snap never takes these snakes by surprise, and until the onset of spring (unlike many other cold-blooded snakes that freeze en masse in cold winters), almost all individuals of the population survive. There are several rational (and not entirely) explanations for this.

  • As shelters, they choose burrows of rodents, moles, located below the freezing layer, at a depth of 0.4 to 2 m.
  • For wintering in one place, vipers quite often gather several dozen, when, having huddled in a huge ball, they additionally heat each other.
  • Vipers are somehow very good at predicting the onset of even temporary cold weather.

AT hibernation about 180 days pass, and in early spring When snow still lies somewhere in the forest, vipers crawl out again onto the sun-warmed earth.

Lifespan

The maximum lifespan of the common viper in the wild is 12-15 years. This is a lot for existence in conditions where there are a large number of factors that reduce. In specialized nurseries, serpentaria, when kept in home terrariums, vipers live much longer, reaching 20-, and in some cases even 30-year-olds. This is explained by the fact that slave snakes, unlike free relatives, are provided with timely feeding, constant maintenance of a favorable microclimate, complete absence enemies and even veterinary care.

It is interesting! Herpetologists believe that the lifespan of Vipera berus is inversely proportional to the frequency of mating, thus reaching 30 years in individuals belonging to northern populations.

Common viper venom

Viper venom is a mixture of high-molecular protein compounds that have a hemolytic and necrotizing effect on blood components. In addition, the poison contains a neurotoxin that negatively affects cardiovascular system. However, the bite of an ordinary viper is extremely rarely fatal: the damaging components are too low in concentration to pose a danger to the life of an adult. More serious are the consequences of a viper bite for children and pets that accidentally disturb a snake that is forced to defend itself. The forecast may include:

  • progressive shock;
  • intravascular coagulation;
  • acute anemia.

In any case, the victim, even after providing him with first aid, should contact a medical facility.

On the other hand, the toxic properties of the poison are widely used for medical purposes, in the production of a number of analgesic, absorbable, anti-inflammatory drugs, and cosmetics, which makes it possible to consider the common viper as an object of economic and scientific importance.

Range, habitats

The species Vipera berus has a fairly wide distribution. Its representatives are found throughout the northern part of Eurasia, from Sakhalin, northern Korea, northeast China to Spain and northern Portugal. In Russia, the prevalence of the common viper covers the entire middle lane from the Arctic to the steppe belt in the south. But the distribution of populations over these territories is uneven:

  • the average population density is no more than 0.15 individuals / 1 km of the route in areas with unfavorable conditions;
  • where the habitat conditions for snakes are most suitable, "foci" are formed with a density of 3.5 individuals / 1 km of the route.

In such regions, vipers choose the outskirts of moss swamps, forest clearings, overgrown burnt areas, glades of mixed and coniferous massifs, banks of rivers and reservoirs as places of localization. Above sea level, the common viper is distributed up to 3000 m.

Usually in Vipera berus sedentary life, representatives of the species rarely move further than 100 m, and only during migrations in spring and autumn are they able to cover distances of up to 5 km, sometimes crossing quite wide water spaces. Vipers can also be found in anthropogenic landscapes: forest parks, basements of country and rural houses, abandoned buildings, vegetable gardens and farmland.

The diet of the common viper

The traditional "menu" of the common viper consists mainly of warm-blooded animals: moles, shrews, mice, small birds. But she does not neglect frogs, lizards, even manifestations of cannibalism occur when the snake eats its own brood. Vipera berus is rather gluttonous: at one time it is able to swallow 3-4 frogs or mice. At the same time, without any harm to themselves, representatives of the species go without food for 6-9 months. This ability is biologically determined:

  • in winter, snakes fall into a stupor, and during this period, fat deposited over the summer helps them maintain the necessary life processes;
  • snakes are forced to starve when, with a long consumption of the same type of food, the food supply is depleted.

Snakes mainly get water with food, but sometimes they drink dew or raindrops.