Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index A viper is a venomous snake, belonging to the Viperidae family (consisting of roughly 150 species). A viper is characterised by its long erectile fangs, which are folded back when not in use. They also have triangle-shaped heads with a distinctly narrower neck. (The broad areas of the head house the venom glands.) Their eyes have iriseses like a cat's eye (but if you are close enough to see that, you're probably too close!) Being 0.3-3 m long, vipers feed on small animals, which are injected with venom and then dragged along until they die. Common Name Technical Name Geographic Range Bushmaster Lachesis muta South America Bush Viper Atberis squamiger Angola, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya Cyclades Blunt-Nosed Viper Vipera lebetina schweizeri Greece Crossed Viper Vipera berus berus British Isles, Russia, China, Spain European Asp Vipera aspis aspis Austria, Germany, Italy, France Fea's Viper Azemips feae Burma, SE Tibet, China Gaboon Viper Bitis gabonica gabonica Most areas of Africa Horned Desert Viper Cerastes cerastes cerastes Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq Leaf-Nosed Viper Eristocopbis macmaboni Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan Long-Nosed Viper Vipera ammodytes ammodytes Hungary, Austria, Italy, Romania Palestinian Viper Vipera palaestinae Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan Rhinoceros Viper Bitis nasicornis Kenya, Uganda, Angola, Zaire Rough-Scaled Tree Viper Atberis bispidus Kenya, Uganda, Zaire Russel's Viper ''Vipera russellii russellii Pakistan, India Saw-Scaled Viper Echis carinatus leakeyi Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia See also: Adder Reference Living Snakes of the World in Color by John M. Mehrtens, 1987. ISBN 0-8069-6460X For the Dodge automobile called Viper, see Dodge Viper. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.