Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

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Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Lennart Schmid » Mon Dec 18, 2017 5:53 pm

Hi there,
I was wondering how much polymorphism you can find in young adders. I've observed my first young adders in the wild this year and was stunned by the different colorations they have. While most berus in the habitat I have observed are born brown and turn black over time, some are born black aswell. Others (around a quarter) keep their brown color with the typical zigzag pattern. I also came along these two greyisch looking ones, that did not have the typical orange eye coloration of other adders. They were found next to two normal colored babies, possibly their siblings.

ImageBaby adder by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr
Image.Baby adder by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

A forum member also pointed the different eye coloration out to me and we were wondering, if this could be a sign of anerythrism, or if its just regular polymorphism.
Anyway, I also just wanted to show you guys these beautiful little berus. Does anyone have images of similar looking ones, or of other unusual colored viper babies?
Greetings,
Paul
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:53 pm

Paul Aiscan wrote:While most berus in the habitat I have observed are born brown and turn black over time, some are
born black aswell
. Others (around a quarter) keep their brown color with the typical zigzag pattern.

That's a very interesting observation. I've always been told (by experts, no doubt) that no melanistic
adult V. berus had been born as such. Wrong experts, or just a lack of field data, or what?
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Guillaume Gomard » Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:55 pm

Beautiful specimen Paul! I also find the eye colouration suspicious, so far I could only observe young adders with yellow eyes, such as those ones (observed in Black Forest, gathered within 2 m²):

Vberussiblingsfh.jpg
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Lennart Schmid » Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:08 pm

Berislav Horvatic wrote:
Paul Aiscan wrote:While most berus in the habitat I have observed are born brown and turn black over time, some are
born black aswell
. Others (around a quarter) keep their brown color with the typical zigzag pattern.

That's a very interesting observation. I've always been told (by experts, no doubt) that no melanistic
adult V. berus had been born as such. Wrong experts, or just a lack of field data, or what?
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Lennart Schmid » Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:12 pm

Berislav Horvatic wrote:
Paul Aiscan wrote:While most berus in the habitat I have observed are born brown and turn black over time, some are
born black aswell
. Others (around a quarter) keep their brown color with the typical zigzag pattern.

That's a very interesting observation. I've always been told (by experts, no doubt) that no melanistic
adult V. berus had been born as such. Wrong experts, or just a lack of field data, or what?


Well other than you I have no Information from experts, so my statement lacks any certainty.
I have only observed black babies, black adults aswell as semi-black colored semi-adults and brown babies in the same habitat. And I have been told so by other herpers, but again no actual experts in that case.

P.S. please ignore my comment from before, if its not already deleted
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Lennart Schmid » Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:24 pm

Guillaume Gomard wrote:Beautiful specimen Paul! I also find the eye colouration suspicious, so far I could only observe young adders with yellow eyes, such as those ones (observed in Black Forest, gathered within 2 m²):

Vberussiblingsfh.jpg


Yes those are the ones I have also found the most, so I was quite struck by the two greyisch ones. I also havent found another Image of an adder with non-yellow or red eyes.
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:47 am

Paul Aiscan wrote:Well other than you I have no Information from experts, so my statement lacks any certainty.
I have only observed black babies, black adults aswell as semi-black colored semi-adults and brown babies in the same habitat. And I have been told so by other herpers, but again no actual experts in that case.
P.S. please ignore my comment from before, if its not already deleted


No, no, please, I'm no "expert", I just listened to people who (should) know much more than me... They might
have been just wrong - after all, the observations (should) decide in any empirical science... If you observed
black babies of V. berus, then they do exist, after all, and "hard science" should take that into account.
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Ruggero M. » Tue Dec 19, 2017 7:44 am

Yes, "science" must follow observation, and not the contrary! :lol:
Have you pictures of these black babies?
As I can understand from the 3d, they are actually the rare fact, more than grey eyed babies... 8-)

I posed to myself the same question but with another species: Hierophis viridiflavus.
I knew that even in black specimens, the babies are born normally coloured. And my observations confirmed this fact. Except for two cases... but unfortunately I did not manage to capture the two animals. Province of Pavia: the first one was surely (? 99% surely) a black viridiflavus. Totally ink black: but it was not a baby. It was something like 50-60 cm long.
The second observation was more interesting.
Viridiflavus habitat: I saw a totally black small and slender baby snake around 40 cm long. 100% ink black. A black baby viridiflavus? I will never know... :cry:
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Lennart Schmid » Tue Dec 19, 2017 10:44 am

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Yes, "science" must follow observation, and not the contrary! :lol:
Have you pictures of these black babies?
As I can understand from the 3d, they are actually the rare fact, more than grey eyed babies... 8-)

I posed to myself the same question but with another species: Hierophis viridiflavus.
I knew that even in black specimens, the babies are born normally coloured. And my observations confirmed this fact. Except for two cases... but unfortunately I did not manage to capture the two animals. Province of Pavia: the first one was surely (? 99% surely) a black viridiflavus. Totally ink black: but it was not a baby. It was something like 50-60 cm long.
The second observation was more interesting.
Viridiflavus habitat: I saw a totally black small and slender baby snake around 40 cm long. 100% ink black. A black baby viridiflavus? I will never know... :cry:


Yes I have a picture of one of them, but its quite a bad one, it ran of to soon for a good picture, but still you can clearly see the black coloration:
ImageBaby adder by Lennart Aiscan, auf Flickr

Also, Yannick Weinand has send me an interesting paper about black born adders and their difference in size and weight to normal born ones, might be of interest for this discussion :) :
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... rn_heavier

It describes the birth of melanistic babies, but interestingly the youngs in the paper are not entirely black compared to the one in my picture, so maybe there is a difference.
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Re: Baby Vipera berus polymorphism

Postby Ruggero M. » Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:32 pm

Read the article.
My opinion is that without observations in captive kept snakes it will be very difficult to reach some conclusions with sporadic field observations.
Another thought of mine: black colour and cold climate. With H.viridiflavus it happens exactly the opposite: where I live in northern Italy black specimens are exceptions. In the hot and sunny Sicily they are the normality... :lol: So, we are probably missing something?
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