Steppe viper. Steppe viper: is it dangerous? Reproduction of steppe vipers

It is common in all European countries, where there are forest-steppes, in Ukraine it can be found in the Black Sea region and Crimea, and in Russia - in the European part of steppes and forest-steppes, in the foothills North Caucasus. This snake also lives in Asia: in Kazakhstan, Southern Siberia, and Altai. However, due to active plowing of the land, the population of this reptile species has noticeably decreased, and in European countries the animal is protected. In Ukraine and Russia, the reptile is listed in the national Red Books.

The steppe viper is a rather distinctive animal, and it is difficult to confuse it with a grass snake or a non-venomous snake. The size of the reptile is from 55 to 63 centimeters, with females being larger than males. This species is distinguished from other snakes by some raised edges of the muzzle, which gives it the appearance of a “bared grin.” On the sides the scales are painted in gray-brown tones, and the back is lighter with a clear zigzag stripe running along the ridge. A dark pattern is also visible on the forehead. The abdomen is light, with gray spots.

From hibernation these reptiles wake up depending on climatic conditions, when the temperature is set at least seven degrees Celsius. And in April or May they have mating season. In spring and autumn, the snake comes out of its shelter only in the warmest time of the day, and in summer it can be seen in the morning and evening hours. What do snakes of this species eat? Small rodents, chicks, but the main diet consists of insects, mainly fatty locusts. Therefore, the animal is considered useful for Agriculture. The reptile does not disdain lizards either. In turn, the reptile serves as food for others. It is also devoured by a larger lizard snake.

The steppe viper is viviparous. In August, the female brings from three to ten baby snakes in one litter. Newborns weigh about 4 grams with a body length of 11-13 centimeters. Little vipers reach sexual maturity only in the third year of life, when they grow to 27-30 centimeters. Young animals quite often, adults less often, change their skin. To do this, snakes climb into a crevice and begin to rub against stones until cracks appear at their lips. After which the individual crawls out of skin like from an old stocking.

In Russia, including snakes, for the most part they are not dangerous. But vipers in this sense are an exception. However, rumors about the dangers of their poison are somewhat exaggerated. An encounter with this snake can be fatal for a small animal, such as a dog, but not for a person. Its bite is quite painful. In its place, swelling rapidly develops, which spreads far beyond the affected foot. Hemorrhagic blisters and even necrotic areas may form. The person bitten experiences dizziness, increased heart rate, drowsiness, nausea, decreased general temperature bodies.

If you or your companion are bitten by a steppe viper, you must provide first aid to the victim as quickly as possible. To do this, you need to wrap a cloth twisted into a tourniquet around the area of ​​the body above the bite. Mostly snakes sting in the foot (sometimes in the hand, when a person accidentally stumbles upon an animal while looking for mushrooms or berries). The tourniquet must be applied tightly to prevent the flow of infected blood. Then squeeze out the blood affected by the poison through the wounds left by the viper’s teeth. After this, the patient should still be taken to the doctor to avoid complications and allergic reactions. The Anti-gyurza serum has proven itself well.

Steppe viper (Vipera ursinii) – poisonous snake, a widely known representative of the genus of true vipers in Russia.

Description of the steppe viper

The length of the reptile's body with head is on average 45-48 cm; the known record for this species is 70 cm. Females are slightly larger than males.

On top, the snake is brownish-gray in color with the same zigzag stripe along the ridge as that of an ordinary viper. Sometimes this stripe is broken into separate spots. The head has a symmetrical pattern of dark spots. Completely black individuals (melanists) are very rare among this species.

First of all, it differs from the steppe in its smaller size. In addition, the upper side of its head sharply turns into the side, forming a pronounced rib; as a result, the lateral edge of its muzzle is pointed (in the common one it is rounded) and slightly raised above its upper part.

Habitats

The steppe viper is common in Central Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Northwestern China, Turkey, Iran, Kazakhstan and the Caucasus. It's pretty normal look for the south Western Siberia and the south of the European part of Russia (in the north its habitat reaches Kazan).

Unlike the common viper, the steppe viper is found on open spaces. It’s not for nothing that it received such a name: its favorite places habitats – various types of steppes. She also lives on rocky mountain slopes, alpine meadows, sea ​​coasts, in riverine forests, ravines, semi-deserts and loose sands. It can also be found in pastures and fields.

In favorable habitats, its population density can be extremely high. For example, in Kazakhstan, in the tea thickets, the number of these snakes can reach up to 45 individuals per 1 hectare, and in the Ciscaucasia - up to 60! In such places you can’t even take a step without bumping into this snake. However, the steppe viper does not have such obvious “snake foci” as are known in the common viper - it is more evenly distributed.

Poisonousness of the steppe viper

The venom of this snake is not very strong. There have been no recorded cases of death from its bite to people or large animals. Usually after 5-12 days the victim makes a full recovery.

Symptoms of poisoning are the same as with the bite of other vipers. A pricking sensation occurs in the affected area, the skin turns red, and a mark from two teeth is visible. After 10-20 minutes, swelling occurs at the site of the bite, sometimes significant. After a few hours, bruising and bloody blisters may appear. In addition, there appear characteristic features toxic poisoning: dizziness and nausea, sometimes vomiting, severe weakness, chills, pain in various parts of the body, rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath.

The effect of the poison is directly related to its amount entering the body. The amount of poison, in turn, depends on:

• season (snakes have more venom in autumn than at other times of the year);
• size and age of the reptile (larger and older individuals have more poison);
• the interval between meals by the snake (in well-fed snakes it is present in greater quantities than in hungry ones);
• stages of molting (for those who molt in given time reptiles have more poison);
• time interval between bites (the full volume of venom in a reptile is restored after 2 weeks).

The venom of the steppe viper is also found industrial application. These snakes, like common vipers, kept in snake nurseries.

Snake lifestyle

The steppe viper leads a terrestrial lifestyle, preferring dry and sunny places. It can also crawl into trees: there are cases when they were found at a height of four meters. In addition, the reptile swims well.

The steppe viper is a diurnal snake. In spring and autumn, it can most often be seen in the middle of the day. In summer it is active in the morning and evening, and during hot hours it sits out in shelters.

Nutritional Features

The diet of the steppe viper is radically different from the diet of its closest relatives. She doesn't eat small mammals and lizards, and, strangely enough, insects! IN summer time it hunts almost exclusively on orthoptera - locusts, grasshoppers, grasshoppers, which it catches in large quantities.

In the spring, when there are no adult insects yet, steppe vipers have no choice but to try to hunt small rodents, lizards and tailless amphibians. However, luck does not always smile on them: most often their stomachs remain empty, because catching such prey is not an easy task for them. Sometimes they include in their diet other food available to them: spiders, chicks of larks, buntings and other small birds, bird eggs. It happens that frogs become their prey.

After the victim is captured, the vipers usually swallow it alive without using their poisonous apparatus. They digest food from two to four days.

Reproduction

Mating season steppe vipers falls at the beginning - mid-April. At this time, males are actively looking for females. Like their relatives, this species often suits mating games: You can often find “balls” of snakes of 6-8 individuals - usually one female and several competing males attracted by her. Males also organize ritual fights – the so-called “dances”.

After the mating period, males, and especially females, rest for a long time on open places basking under the rays of the sun. At this time, they often catch the eye of a person.

Pregnancy of the steppe viper lasts from 90 to 130 days. The female gives birth to live young; there can be a lot of them in one litter - up to 28, but usually 5-6. The length of newborn vipers is 12-18 cm. They feed mainly on various insects. Soon after birth, they molt (by the way, adults molt 3 times a year). In the third year of life, they reach a length of 30-35 cm and can already bear offspring.

Wintering

These snakes hibernate alone or in small groups in cracks in the soil, in rodent burrows, in voids between stones and other suitable shelters.

It is interesting that the steppe viper in its distribution areas leaves for wintering later than all other reptiles, and in the spring it appears earlier than others - in the south of its range already at the end of February - beginning of March. It can be found even in winter, during the thaw, when the temperature rises to + 4° C.

Enemies of the steppe viper

When meeting a person or other possible danger, the reptile tries to retreat as quickly as possible. But since she is quite slow, she does not always manage to crawl away. In this case, she actively defends herself, raising her head on an S-shaped curved neck, which at any moment the head can “throw” towards the enemy with lightning speed. And she has enough enemies: these are owls, steppe eagles, harriers, black storks, hedgehogs, badgers, foxes, wild boars, steppe ferrets. But, like many other representatives of the fauna, its most serious enemy is man. People catch reptiles in order to extract snake venom, and often kill, simply because of their ignorance, any snake they meet along the way - many vipers die only because of superstitious fears of snakes.

IN last years The number of steppe viper is noticeably declining. This happens due to the plowing of the steppes, construction and reclamation work, as well as direct destruction by humans.

In contact with

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Type Chordata - Chordata
Class Reptiles
squad Scaly - Squamata
Family Viper family - Viperidae.
View Steppe viper - Pelias renardi (Christoph, 1861)

Status. 3 "Rare" - 3, RD.

Global Threat Category on the IUCN Red List

Not included in the IUCN Red List.

Category according to IUCN Red List criteria

The regional population is classified as Near Threatened, NT. B. S. Tuniev.

Belonging to the objects of international agreements and conventions ratified by the Russian Federation

Do not belong.

Brief morphological description

The length of the body with tail reaches 635 mm at ♂ and 735 mm at ♀. Two color variants have been noted: cryptic and melanistic. Cryptic (typical) coloration is represented by various variants of gray and brown colors with a dark brown or black zigzag stripe on the back. Melanistic individuals in the region represent approximately a fifth of the population, although in some groups the number of melanistic individuals can reach 44%.

Spreading

The global range covers the steppe and semi-desert zones of South-Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. In the Russian Federation it is found from the Volga-Kama region in the north to the Ciscaucasia in the south and Altai in the east. The regional range covers the flat part and foothills north of the line Anapa - Abrau-Dyurso - Novorossiysk - Abinsk - Goryachiy Klyuch - Khadyzhensk - Psebay. Type area: Sarepta, Lower Volga (Russia).

Features of biology and ecology

The steppe viper is found on the plains various types(loess, alluvial-loess, terraced), on the hills in the lower mountains. Inhabits forest edges, shrub associations, shiblyaks, steppe slopes. In the southeast of the range in the region it rises up to 1000 m above sea level. sea, capable of living on sandy sea spits.

In the conditions of an anthropogenic landscape, it forms strip settlements along inaccessible and waste areas, forest plantations, etc. They appear from wintering grounds in March, activity continues until the first days of November, the average duration of viper activity in the region is 230 days. In spring and autumn, vipers are active during the day; in July–August, double-peak activity was observed.

The diet includes invertebrates and vertebrates. Mating occurs en masse in April. The birth of young takes place from the end of June to the first days of September. In broods, from 3 to 18 individuals were noted.

Number and its trends

In the vicinity of the village of Raevskaya, there were 2–3 individuals of the steppe viper per 2 km of the route, on the ridge. Gerpegem - 2 individuals per 1 km, in the vicinity of Saratovskaya station - up to 4 individuals per 1 hectare, on Yasenskaya Spit - 5 individuals per 1 km. The maximum population density in the region is 30 individuals per 1 hectare with an average density of 11 individuals. per 1 ha.

Limiting factors

The transformation of steppe and forest-steppe landscapes and direct destruction by humans have led to a reduction in the number and range of the species

Necessary and additional security measures

Organization of micro-reserves in dense habitats of the species.

Information sources. 1. Ananyeva et al., 2004; 2. Ostrovskikh, 1997; 3. Ostrovskikh, 2003; 4. Ostrovskikh, Plotnikov, 2003a; 5. Ostrovskikh, Plotnikov, 2003b; 6. Unpublished data from the compilers. Compiled by B. S. Tuniev, S. B. Tuniev. BIRD class - Aves

Cited literature: classification - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki