Critically Endangered
Vipera darevskii
Vipera darevskii
Vipera darevskii is a viper in the family Viperidae. The species is native to northwestern Armenia, northeastern Turkey, and southern Georgia.
Appearance
In this species, V. Darevskii, there is sexual dimorphism in size, color, and pattern appearance. The dorsal surface of V. Darevskii has a light brown to grey background color, with a dark brown to black (often broken) zigzag pattern along the back, and a single row of small dark blotches on each side of the body. The belly has a pattern of numerous grey or black dots.
The reported maximum total length (among them tail) for females is 42.1 cm (16.6 in). The total length of the largest male was 25.8 cm (10.2 in).
Range and habitat
A montane snake, V. Darevskii is only known from the southwestern Dzavakhety Mountains in Shirak Marz of Armenia, on Madatapa, Javakheti Ridge, Erusheti Mountains and Akhaltsihe Highland Georgia and the east of the Artvin Province and Ardahan Province of Turkey. The type locality given is "Mount Leghli" (Achkasar), Mokrye mountains (Wet mountains), Gukasyanskii region (former Ghukasyan district), Armenia." The mountain ridges supporting Darevsky's viper have unique climate conditions. In some north-facing patches, close to the watersheds and summits of mountain ridges, some residual snow and ice never melts.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet and breeding
It forages on lizards, small rodents, and orthopterans. Females feed intensively throughout the warm season, and give birth to 4–8 babies in September to Early October.
An ovoviviparous snake, V. Darevskii mates in May, after the first spring shed.
In crisis
This species, V. Darevskii, is classified as critically endangered (CR) according to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species with the following criteria: B1ab(ii,iii)+2ab(ii,iii) (v3.1, 2001). This indicates that its extent of occurrence is estimated to be less than 100 km2, its area of occupancy is estimated to be less than 10 km2, its population is severely fragmented and a continuing decline is observed, projected, or inferred, in the extent of its habitat.
Vipera darevskii is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Vipera darevskii, Wikidata item Q188182. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
