They are found all over the world, with the exceptions of Antarctica, Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar, north of the Arctic Circle and island clusters such as Hawaii. The family Viperidae includes adders, pit vipers (like rattlesnakes, cottonmouths and copperheads), the Gaboon viper, green vipers and horned vipers.Mar 10, 2016[1]
Where Do Most Vipers Live?
Old World vipers live in desert to forest habitats of Europe, Asia, and Africa. They are typically slow, stocky, and broad-headed. Many, such as the European viper, or common adder (Vipera berus), and the Gaboon viper (Bitis gabonica), are terrestrial.[2]
Where Can You Find Viper Snakes?
You can find these snakes from the United States, south through Central and South America. They also live in Eurasia, Africa, and various islands. Some even range into the Arctic Circle. Only a few regions do not contain Vipers, including Australia, Antarctica, and Siberia.[3]
What Do Viper Snakes Eat?
Vipers target warm-blooded prey, such as rats and mice, and some hunt during the day. One group, the pit vipers, are mainly active at night. They have a pair of heat-sensitive pits between the eyes and mouth for detecting the body warmth of prey.[4]
What Are Vipers Favorite Food?
A Variety of Rodents
Very small vipers, usually youngsters, prey on newborn mice or rodents who are still quite little — the prey must be small enough for the snake to swallow. Vipers also eat adult mice and rats, chipmunks, squirrels, voles and even prairie dogs if they’re the right size.[5]
What Do Viper Snakes Eat
Vipers eat a variety of food depending on the size of the snake. Prey includes small mammals, birds, lizards and eggs, according to Savitzky. When their prey is dead, they swallow it whole. Vipers engage in a hunting activity called prey relocation, according to an article in BMC Biology journal.Mar 10, 2016[6]
What Are Vipers Favorite Food?
A Variety of Rodents
Very small vipers, usually youngsters, prey on newborn mice or rodents who are still quite little — the prey must be small enough for the snake to swallow. Vipers also eat adult mice and rats, chipmunks, squirrels, voles and even prairie dogs if they’re the right size.[7]
How Poisonous Is A Viper Snake?
Vipers include some of the deadliest snakes. A viper has a stocky body, a wide head, and long, hinged fangs at the front of its mouth for injecting venom. The venom causes a very painful wound that can be fatal. Vipers target warm-blooded prey, such as rats and mice, and some hunt during the day.[8]
How Does A Viper Eat?
They eat small animals and hunt by striking and envenomating their prey. Vipers are characterized by a pair of long, hollow, venom-injecting fangs attached to movable bones of the upper jaw (the maxillaries) that are folded back in the mouth when not in use. Their eyes have vertical pupils, and their scales are keeled.[9]
How Often Does A Viper Eat?
Smaller or younger snakes usually eat twice each week, while larger, more mature snakes typically eat once every week or two. Female snakes approaching breeding season can be fed more frequently.[10]
How Are Viper Snakes Born
Most vipers are ovoviviparous, Savitzky said. That means the eggs are fertilized and incubate inside the mother and she gives birth to live young.Mar 10, 2016[11]
How Many Babies Does A Viper Have?
Females can have 50 to 60 babies at a time. The young are born live.[12]
Do Viper Snakes Lay Eggs?
Of the four venomous snakes native to the United States, only the coral snake is an egg-layer. The other three, rattlesnake, copperhead and water moccasin, are pit vipers — and vipers don’t lay eggs. The largest snake found in the United States, the non-native Burmese python, is an egg-layer.[13]
How Do Vipers Mate?
The female viper conceives by taking the male’s head in her mouth. She then bites off his head and he dies.[14]
Does Viper Give Birth To Other Snakes?
According to him, vipers are the only species among venomous snakes to give birth to young ones. The other species of vipers found in India are Saw Scaled Viper, Bamboo Pit Viper and Malabar Pit Viper.Jun 3, 2011[15]
Where Do Green Viper Snakes Live
These are all Old World snakes, found in Africa and Asia. Probably the most famous of the green vipers is Trimeresurus albolabris, also called green pit viper or white-lipped viper. They are found in Southeast Asia, India and southern China, according to The University of Adelaide’s Clinical Toxinology Resources.Mar 10, 2016[16]
Are Green Vipers Poisonous?
Craspedocephalus gramineus, known as the bamboo pit viper, Indian green pit viper, or common green pit viper, is a venomous pit viper species found in the southern and north eastern parts of India.[17]
What Do Green Tree Vipers Eat?
They eat small rodents, birds, frogs, and lizards.[18]
Pit Viper Snakes Sense What Wavelengths
Venomous pit vipers detect warm-blooded prey through their ability to sense infrared (750 nm – 1 mm wavelength) radiation. Superimposition of thermal and visual images within the snake’s brain enables it to track animals with great precision and speed.Mar 14, 2010[19]
What Part Of The Light Spectrum Do Pit Vipers See?
Pit vipers have an amazing and little-known ability to see infrared light. They do this by means of their eponymous pits, which are essentially a second pair of eyes located in the loreal region of their face, between the normal (visible light or ‘lateral’) eye and the nostril.Sep 4, 2012[20]
What Do Pit Viper Snakes Sense With Their Pits?
Vipers, pythons and boas have holes on their faces called pit organs, which contain a membrane that can detect infrared radiation from warm bodies up to one metre away. At night, the pit organs allow snakes to ‘see’ an image of their predator or prey — as an infrared camera does — giving them a unique extra sense.[21]
What Wavelengths Do Snakes See?
The infrared sensors can detect wavelengths of 10 micrometers, and ‘that’s extremely low-energy radiation,’ Grace says. That means that a snake can ‘see’ a warm-blooded animal even with its eyes closed.[22]
What Electromagnetic Waves Can Snakes Sense?
It has been known for decades that rattlesnakes, boas and pythons have so-called pit organs between the eye and the nostril that can sense even tiny amounts of infrared radiation — heat — in their surroundings.[23]
How Can Viper Snakes Catch Small Animals In The Dark
Heat Vision
These snakes have specialized heat pits on their head that are sensitive to changes in heat in their environments. The pits allow them to hone in on an animal’s body heat, even in complete darkness.[24]
How Do Snakes Find Prey In The Dark?
Snakes can ‘see’ in the dark thanks to protein channels that are activated by heat from the bodies of their prey. Vipers, pythons and boas have holes on their faces called pit organs, which contain a membrane that can detect infrared radiation from warm bodies up to one metre away.[25]
How Do Vipers Catch Their Prey?
Venom travels down through the follow teeth to be injected into prey as the viper bites. Vipers can rotate their fangs together or independently, which allows them to wait until the last second to erect their fangs.[26]
Can A Snake Be In The Dark?
Certain species of snake – think pit vipers, boa constrictors and pythons, among others – are able to find and capture prey with uncanny accuracy, even in total darkness.Oct 21, 2020[27]
What Animals Are Snakes Afraid Of?
Large birds, wild boars, mongooses, raccoons, foxes, coyotes and even other snakes are a few of the dangers snakes fall prey to. Many people find it surprising that the largest and the scariest snakes can be afraid of anything, but it is true.[28]
Viper Snakes Who Eat Hummingbirds
Adult eyelash palm pitvipers prey upon small mammals, birds (including hovering hummingbirds) and nestlings, lizards and frogs. Juveniles prey primarily on small frogs. At the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, the eyelash palm pitviper eats mice and small rats. Eyelash vipers are ovoviviparous.[29]
Do Snakes Eat Hummingbirds?
Even frogs, fish, snakes and lizards can snag a low-flying hummingbird. Other dangers include larger, aggressive birds who will kill and eat smaller birds, squirrels who raid the bird feeders or insects who invade hummingbird feeders. Squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays and crows will eat hummingbird eggs and babies.[30]
Resources
[1]https://www.livescience.com/54023-vipers.html
[2]https://www.britannica.com/animal/viper-snake
[3]https://animals.net/viper/
[4]https://www.dkfindout.com/us/animals-and-nature/reptiles/vipers/
[5]https://animals.mom.com/vipers-diet-11400.html
[6]https://www.livescience.com/54023-vipers.html
[7]https://animals.mom.com/vipers-diet-11400.html
[8]https://www.dkfindout.com/us/animals-and-nature/reptiles/vipers/
[9]https://www.britannica.com/animal/viper-snake
[10]https://vcahospitals.com/know-your-pet/snakes-feeding
[11]https://www.livescience.com/54023-vipers.html
[12]https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/gaboon-viper%23:~:text%3DFemales%2520can%2520have%252050%2520to,The%2520young%2520are%2520born%2520live.
[13]https://animals.mom.com/livebearing-snakes-vs-egglaying-1975.html%23:~:text%3DOf%2520the%2520four%2520venomous%2520snakes,%252C%2520is%2520an%2520egg%252Dlayer.
[14]https://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast267.htm%23:~:text%3DThe%2520female%2520viper%2520conceives%2520by,his%2520head%2520and%2520he%2520dies.
[15]https://www.deccanherald.com/content/166055/viper-gives-birth-53-offspring.html%23:~:text%3DAccording%2520to%2520him%252C%2520vipers%2520are,Viper%2520and%2520Malabar%2520Pit%2520Viper.
[16]https://www.livescience.com/54023-vipers.html
[17]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craspedocephalus_gramineus%23:~:text%3DCraspedocephalus%2520gramineus%252C%2520known%2520as%2520the,north%2520eastern%2520parts%2520of%2520India.
[18]https://animalia.bio/stejnegers-pit-viper%23:~:text%3DThey%2520eat%2520small%2520rodents%252C%2520birds%252C%2520frogs%252C%2520and%2520lizards.
[19]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855400/
[20]https://snakesarelong.blogspot.com/2012/09/snakes-that-can-see-without-eyes.html
[21]https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.122
[22]https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story%3Fid%3D98115%26page%3D1
[23]https://phys.org/news/2010-03-scientists-reveal-snakes-night.html
[24]https://animals.mom.com/senses-snakes-use-catch-prey-10570.html
[25]https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2010.122
[26]https://www.livescience.com/54023-vipers.html
[27]https://uh.edu/news-events/stories/2020/october-2020/10212020sharma-snake-vision.php
[28]https://www.kidzone.ws/lw/snakes/facts10.htm
[29]https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/eyelash-palm-pitviper
[30]https://www.perkypet.com/advice/hummingbirds-101/hummingbird-protection