Reptilia · Squamata
Vipera aspisLinnaeus, 1758
Asp Viper
Photograph placed in the public domain, CC0, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Palearctic region, reaching 850 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Vipera
- Grows to
- 850mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 25years
Longer than only 49% 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
42 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
- 2008
- Population trend
- Decreasing
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 25years
- Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradientmeasured
- 23.8–30.6°C75–87 °F
Stark et al. 2020
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 517mm20.5 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 480mm19 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 850mm2 ft 9 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 324.8g11.5 oz
- Body mass · a typical adult
- 161g5.7 oz
- Body mass · adult female, meanmeasured
- 22.4g0.79 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 7g0.25 oz
850 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), average 600-650 (Brusco et al. 2021), 137 g (the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History), Lourdais et al. 2023 (pregnant female SVL ~42-54 cm from Figure 2)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
AnAge rates this record "acceptable"
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- How it hunts
- Sit and wait
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Habitat
- Forest
- Biome
- Temperate Broadleaf & Mixed Forests
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2930m
- Range size
- 757,283km²
"small mammals (in particular rodents and shrews) and, to a lower proportion, of amphibians, lizards, or small birds" (Brusco et al. 2021)
Sit (Glaudas et al. 2019)
Cathemeral (Stark et al. 2018)/diurnal heliotherm and "At night, vipers’ shelter in underground refuges to avoid predation" (Rutschmann et al. 2024)
Scharf et al. 2015
0-2930 (O'Shea 2018)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 7eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 1–12eggs
- Mean clutch
- 5.2–5.9eggs
- Clutches in a year
- 0.67per year
- Clutches a year
- 0.5per year
- First breeds at
- 48–60months
- Age at first breeding · female
- 1460days
Feldman et al. 2015, Lourdais et al. 2023
2-9 mean=5.6 (Mallow et al. 2003), 2-12 (O'Shea 2018), 1-22 mean 5.85 (Lourdais et al. 2023, perhaps they meant 12 mentioned later and better fit other data I have; 5.85 is the first author previous data, here it is mean 5.16)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Vipera aspis aspis (LINNAEUS 1758) Vipera aspis atra MEISNER 1820 Vipera aspis francisciredi LAURENTI 1768 Vipera aspis hugyi SCHINZ 1833 Vipera aspis zinnikeri KRAMER 1958
- Described by
- Linnaeus
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1758
- Type locality
- Gallia
Keeping one
2 ft 9 in × 16.5 in × 2 ft 1 in(85 × 43 × 64 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 × 0.75.
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 2 ft 9 in (850 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
In a laboratory thermal gradient this species settled at 75–87 °F (23.8–30.6 °C).
Preferred body temperature, recorded in a laboratory gradient where the animal could choose freely. A measurement of the animal, not a setting for a thermostat.
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.
34kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 325 g, the heaviest recorded for Asp 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 · 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
- — Hatchling length · nose to tail
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Hatchling length · smallest recorded
- — Hatchling length · largest recorded
- — 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
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
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). Vipera aspis. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-aspis
@misc{vipera_aspis_2026,
title = {Vipera aspis},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-aspis}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- AnAge, Human Ageing Genomic Resources (de Magalhães et al.), used under CC BY 3.0.
- 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.