Reptilia · Squamata
Macrovipera lebetinusLinnaeus, 1758
Levantine Viper
Photograph by Václav Gvoždík, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons
An active by day or night, meat-eating snake from the Saharo-Sindian region, reaching 214 cm nose to tail.
Once published as Macrovipera schweizeri — those names reach this page.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Macrovipera
- Grows to
- 2140mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Lives up to
- 13.3years
Longer than 97% of all vipers anyone has measured.
The bar is the rank itself: its length is the share of the family this animal exceeds. The chart below is the family’s real spread, on a logarithmic scale because body length here runs from 280 to 3,900 mm. The solid rule is this animal. Every bar is a count of real species, and nothing on this figure is estimated.
What is known
36 sourced facts, each taken from a named scientific dataset. How to read these.
Cited from a dataset unless a row is marked otherwise.
Standing in the world
- Still living
- Extant
- Conservation status
- Least Concern
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2019
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 13.3years
13.3 years (Chen et al. 2021, Albarwari 2021)
Size
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 2140mm7 ft
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 265mm10.5 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 4769.8g11 lb
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 12.1g0.43 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 8.2g0.29 oz
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Cathemeral
- Where it lives
- Arboreal, terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest, Grassland, Shrubland
- Biome
- Deserts & Xeric Shrublands
- Region
- Saharo-Sindian
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Elevation · above sea level
- 100–2500m
- Range size
- 1,719,858km²
birds, lizards eggs and rodents (Kamali 2020, Eid 2021), schweizeri: birds, lizards and rodents (Degen and Brock 2021), mammals, less so lizards and less than them snakes, also birds, juveniles eat insects (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Sit (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Nocturnal (Murphy et al. 2003, Eid 2021), cathemeral (Kamali 2020); Schweizeri: Cathemeral (Scharf et al. 2015), mostly nocturnal: "mostly nocturnal, with some crepuscular activity in the summer months (Adamopoulou et al., 1997; Nilson et al., 1999). Foraging activity usually takes place at night… However, in the early start of the breeding season and cooler months in late autumn, individuals have been observed basking and hunting migratory birds in tree branches" (Degen and Brock 2021) but they also write "Our encounter with this Milos Viper was unusual in several ways. Firstly, a detailed radio telemetry study (Nilson et al., 1999) found that this species was practically nocturnal during the time of year when we made our observation."
climbs (Kamali 2020), known to climb low shrubs, schweizeri: "Foraging activity usually takes place at night, when vipers will ascend trees and wait for bird prey to strike" (Degen and Brock 2021)
100-2500 (Kamali 2020), 0-748 (O'Shea 2018 for M. schweizeri which I can confirm from pers. obs. ~50 m from the beach, gentle slope), max 2500 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Oviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 9eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 6–35eggs
- Mean clutch
- 9–18.5eggs
- First breeds at
- 48months
Feldman et al. 2015
<=35 (Mallow et al. 2003, Murphy et al. 2003), mean 18.5 (Chen et al. 2021), 6-22 (Eid 2021), schweizeri: mean 9 (Scharf et al. 2015), 10 (Mallow et al. 2003), max=10 (O'Shea 2011, O'Shea 2018), 8-25 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Macrovipera lebetinus lebetinus (LINNAEUS 1758) Macrovipera lebetinus cernovi (CHIKIN & SZCZERBAK 1992) Macrovipera lebetinus obtusa (DWIGUBSKY 1832) Macrovipera lebetinus schweizeri (WERNER 1935) Macrovipera lebetinus transmediterranea (NILSON & ANDRÉN 1988) Macrovipera lebetinus turanica (CHERNOV 1939)
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Transcaucasia
Keeping one
7 ft × 3 ft 6 in × 10 ft 6 in(214 × 107 × 321 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 1.5.
Recorded both on the ground and climbing, so this is the larger of the two rules in every dimension.
Mindestanforderungen an die Haltung von Reptilien (Sachverständigengutachten), German Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Forestry, Animal Welfare Division, 10 January 1997. The standard states these floor areas are recommendations rather than binding limits.
From this animal’s own total length of 7 ft (2140 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 1.5 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Levantine Viper. Rather than repeat a number from a care sheet, this page leaves it out.
Feeding
A prey item should be between the same width as the widest part of the snake's body and about 1.5 times that width.
Widely used across snake husbandry references. An alternative formulation gives prey at 10-15% of the snake's body mass. This is established practice, not a measurement.
365kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 4,770 g, the heaviest recorded for Levantine Viper — so it is the top of the range, not a figure for a particular animal. Weigh yours and the number will be lower.
An upper estimate, not a feeding target, and not veterinary advice. The equation covers only what an animal burns staying alive, so a growing, gravid or recovering animal needs more — and it was measured on wild animals, which move far more than one in an enclosure. Body condition and a vet who knows the species are what a feeding decision should rest on. Where this comes from.
What nobody knows
These are not gaps in our research. No scientific dataset records them for this species — and saying so is information you cannot get from a reference that simply leaves a field out.
- — Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- — Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult male mean
- — Length snout to vent · adult mean
- — Female length · mean, nose to tail
- — Length nose to tail · adult male mean
- — Length nose to tail · adult mean
- — Largest female · snout to vent
- — Largest male · snout to vent
- — Largest female · shell length
- — Largest male · shell length
- — Hatchling length · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — Age at first breeding · female
- — Mature from · youngest recorded
- — Mature by · oldest recorded
- — Size at maturity · smallest recorded
- — Size at maturity · largest recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · lowest mean recorded
- — Body temp in the wild · highest mean recorded
- — Colour on the back
- — Pattern on the back
- — Pupil
- — Red List criteria
- — Active season · shortest recorded
- — Active season · longest recorded
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Density · highest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Active in
Others in Viperidae
Take this data
Everything on this page is available as data under CC BY 4.0 — use it freely, credit it, no permission needed.
This species as JSON · the whole dataset
Cite this page
The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia (2026). Macrovipera lebetinus. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/macrovipera-lebetinus
@misc{macrovipera_lebetinus_2026,
title = {Macrovipera lebetinus},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/macrovipera-lebetinus}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.