Daniel, Bero, what's the percentage of black berus in "your" populations?
At our monitoring site for
V. b. bosniensis in the vicinity of Zagreb, about 1/3 of males, and absolutely no females.
At the site in Gorski Kotar (
V. b. berus) the situation is different, 1/3 of the (found) males (unfortunately, too few,
only 12 - which means just 4 blackies out of 12, a really poor specimen for any serious conclusions), and 28.1% of
females, which were significantly more abundant (= found). In any case, a different climate, a different subspecies.
Elsewhere, who knows... which means, there have been just sporadic finds, no systematic (re)search, but the blackies
are certainly present everywhere. (By that I count only those pitch-black, not just "very dark".)
I have never and will never understand why anyone would prefer a patternless black animal over the beauty
of a patterned viper. That's all.
I fully agree. But, mind you, in early spring, after the
Rana arvalis mating frenzy, or at that time, the blackies are
the first to emerge from hibernation, for some ten days one can find only them, so they are the only joy to be seen
around...
I have never and will never understand why anyone would pay
a lot of money to buy an albino snake (or any other
animal). A friend of mine, a terrarist, has a simple answer: "Because they are rare." Then I ask him whether he would
like his own child to be albinotic, or melanotic, or leucistic, or anything so "nice & rare" like that... No, he wouldn't.