Daboia or Macrovipera mauritanica?????

[Gabriel Martínez]

Hi guys! I want to write some things about a really interesting snake: Daboia mauritanica. The moorish viper is a big viper typical of Morocco and some places of Western Sahara and Algeria. It lives in many habitats and in a big range of attitudes, from sea level in Casablanca to more than 1500 in Haut Atlas. I put photos of habitats:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtnez ... 840115156/ (Close Casablanca)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtnez ... 840115156/ (Close Tan-tan)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtnez ... 228821580/ (Close Agdz)

The colour variation in this snakes is amazing and depends on the place you find the snake or the individual. You can see a snake totally red, the typical individual brown with the zigzag more dark and even clear individuals with a dark Zigzag.
http://www.viborasdelapeninsulaiberica. ... boras.html (by Juan Timms/Daniel Gomez close Tan-tan)
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=77 (by Mario Schweiger close Ouarzazate)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gabrimtnez ... 840115156/ (by me close Casablanca, just killed)

I´ve read actually moorish viper is in the genus Daboia but some people think is Macrovipera. About this I can only talk about morphologycal things, not about genetic data (but genetic is the true). I was lucky and I saw in Israel many Daboia palaestinae. This viper is very similar to Daboia russeli: The head, the coloration, the habitat... but mauritanica? I can´t talk about Daboia deserti because I don´t know this species but mauritanica really seems a lebetina!!!!! What do you think about this???? Mario, you have study well moorish viper, do you think it´s a Daboia??? what is for you the best genus for this species???

[Mario Schweiger]

About this I can only talk about morphologycal things, not about genetic data (but genetic is the true).

Gabri,
believe in your observations and scale countings in outer morphology and don´t trust the genetic data (PDF-368 in database)!
Mauretanica - and deserti - are Macrovipera, no Daboia, I´m sure!

Mario

[Gabriel Martínez]

ok...

[Wolfgang Wüster]

However, the genetic data are pretty unambiguous in assigning mauritanica to Daboia. Also, if you take a detailed look at the morphology of a lebetina and a mauritanica, there are actually a lot of differences.

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Wolfgang's statement has been confirmed once more =>

http://life.bio.sunysb.edu/ee/wienslab/ ... 11_MPE.pdf

Also a lot of genus-level strangeness, but the authors stress that they focus on higher level taxonomy

[Jeroen Speybroeck]

Here's a summary that I made for European genera.
!!! Note that underlined genera show hints of paraphyly.

Daboia is not included in my scheme, but is closest to Vipera.