Vipera latastei

[Mario Schweiger]

Obviously, it's a very nice website and I have been using it in the past myself. It's a shame how they seem to have described that subspecies online, yet the data to support is is there, if I remember well.

I contacted Juan Timms and this is his answer (with his permission to post it here):

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Hello Mario,
I did the V. latastei abulensis study quite a few years ago, at the time I was pretty sure this was a valid subspecies. Right now I am not so sure about it, in fact I tend to think it is just a separate population with morphological variations. The study has not been published, but I keep it on the website for the sake of information.


Cheers,
Juan

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

OK, maybe I'm wrong but I thought I remembered molecular data backing it up. Maybe Juan speaks out of morpho data only?

[Matthew Treawell]

We happened across a juvenile just two weeks ago in the Prades mountains. It was outside the village of Mont-Ral, on a trail down to a gorge (which is absolutely gorgeous). It has the ruins of several old stone mills, which look very herpy. (In fact, we saw loads of ruin lizards and uncovered a legless lizard under a tire, a viperine snake, and several frogs.)
My son was climbing a rock face, and as I watched him I noticed a small ledge, just the kind you'd use as a handhold, about a foot to his left and chest level with him. On the ledge was a snub-nosed viper. I got him down, and we watched it for several minutes. If there are juveniles, there obviously must be breeding adults, so this might be a promising area. Best of luck!

[Gabriel Martínez]

Hi Matthew,

Very nice latastei individual!

I was in Huelva with many friends trying to find it in a weekend (including a couple of german "viper experts") and we found many Malpolon, Macroprotodon, Hemorrhois and Natrix maura but no vipers. My Huelva friends always tell me that is very difficult to find them. The best viper day there (probably in history!) is the day of Jeroen et al. who found 4 (or 3?) in the same day in a place where my friends have been herping thousand of times with success only few times (1-2 vipers in 1 year). In rocky places (Gredos, Burgos, Soria...) is easy to know the aprox place to look for vipers, but in Doñana all is similar and it´s more difficult...

About subspecies, Juan made many scale accounts and other morphological work with vipers, but mtDNA analysis don´t support abulensis. Brito´s team made some genetical analysis and that analysis show a complex scenario with at least 4 clades: west Iberia (Portugal, ssp."abulensis", ssp."gaditana" of Huelva and most áreas of Sierra Morena), east Iberia (east areas of Andalussia to Burgos and Catalonia), Cadiz-Malaga populations and Africa (including sp./ssp."monticola", Middle Atlas, Riff, Algeria). For more info you can read: "Deep evolutionary lineages in a Western Mediterranean snake (Vipera latastei/monticola group) and high genetic structuring in Southern Iberian populations" (Velo-Anton et al., 2012)

Cheers!

[Borji Heras]

As most people is telling you , trying to find vipers in Huelva seems to be quite dfficult (never tried by myself but most searches by other people were unsuccesful)

I fi were you i would search in North Portugal (Geres National Park. Where you can find also seoanei viper very near) or in mountain areas of Burgos-Soria provinces in north Spain.

Good luck

[Mario Schweiger]

For more info you can read: "Deep evolutionary lineages in a Western Mediterranean snake (Vipera latastei/monticola group) and high genetic structuring in Southern Iberian populations" (Velo-Anton et al., 2012)

For those who are interested: PDF-5132 in DB

Mario

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

I fi were you i would search in North Portugal (Geres National Park. Where you can find also seoanei viper very near) or in mountain areas of Burgos-Soria provinces in north Spain.

They won't look like this, though

[Borji Heras]

I agree ...LOL ... Gaditanas are in a different level

[Matthijs Hollanders]

Here's a Doñana gaditana from this spring. I have a feeling they're more common there than they seem, and particularly that night driving should be explored out there.

[miguel santos]

what great captures they are. I bet you enjoyed the moment a lot. It is a beautyful animal.