Reptilia · Squamata
Vipera nikolskiiVedmederya, Grubant, Rudajewa, 1986
Adder
Photograph by Aleksei Baushev, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A ground-dwelling, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Palearctic region, reaching 845 mm nose to tail.
Also called Nikolsky's Viper, Northern Viper.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Vipera
- Grows to
- 845mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives
- Terrestrial
Longer than only 48% 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
27 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
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 765mm2 ft 6 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 845mm2 ft 9 in
- Hatchling length · snout to vent
- 196.5mm7.75 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 210mm8.25 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 309.8g10.9 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 4.25g0.15 oz
Bondarenko and Zinenko 2016, Dunayev and Orlova 2023 (max SVL 765 mm, tail 8 cm, neonates 21 cm TL)
snakes only in this source
computed from length by a family-level allometric equation, not weighed
How it lives
- Diet
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Terrestrial
- Active season · months of the year
- 6months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Density · highest recorded
- 5per hectare
mammals, frogs and nestling birds, juveniles eat froglets and lizards (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
predominantly diurnal (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
"surficial (terrestrial, non-scansorial)" (Gearty et al. 2021)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 7–24eggs
Jandzik 2007
14-15 (Mallow et al. 2003), 7 n=2 (Jandzik 2007), 24 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- No
- Described by
- Vedmederya, Grubant, Rudajewa
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- No
- Described in
- 1986
- Type locality
- Ukraine
Keeping one
2 ft 9 in × 16.5 in × 2 ft 1 in(85 × 42 × 63 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 (845 mm), at 1 × 0.5 × 0.75 times it, following the German federal welfare standard — how this is worked out.
No preferred body temperature has been recorded for Adder. 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.
32kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 310 g, the heaviest recorded for Adder — 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 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — Longest recorded life
- — Preferred body temperature · chosen in a laboratory gradient
- — Body temperature when active · measured in the wild
- — Eats arthropods
- — Eats vertebrates
- — Eats plant matter
- — How it hunts
- — How the young develop
- — Gestation or incubation
- — Average clutch
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — Clutches in a year
- — Clutches a year · fewest
- — Clutches a year · most
- — First breeds from · youngest recorded
- — First breeds by · oldest recorded
- — 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
- — Sex decided by
- — Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- — Population trend
- — Red List criteria
- — Biome
- — Density · lowest recorded
- — Home range · largest recorded
- — Habitat
- — Active in
- — Lowest it lives · above sea level
- — Highest it lives · above sea level
- — Range size
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 nikolskii. Retrieved 2026-09-08, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-nikolskii
@misc{vipera_nikolskii_2026,
title = {Vipera nikolskii},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-nikolskii}
}Sources
- Meiri, S. (2024). SquamBase — a database of squamate (Reptilia: Squamata) traits. Global Ecology and Biogeography. Public domain (CC0).
- GBIF Secretariat. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Used under CC BY 4.0. Common names aggregated from constituent checklists.
- Catalogue of Life (dataset 3LR), used under CC BY.
- Oskyrko, O. et al. (2024). ReptTraits: a comprehensive dataset of ecological traits in reptiles. Scientific Data. Used under CC BY 4.0.