Reptilia · Squamata
Vipera renardiChristoph, 1861
Steppe Viper
Photograph by Kristof Zyskowski, CC BY, via iNaturalist
A burrowing, day-active, meat-eating snake from the Palearctic region, reaching 710 mm nose to tail.
Reptilia › Squamata › Viperidae › Vipera
- Grows to
- 710mm
- greatest recorded
- Eats
- Carnivorous
- Active
- Diurnal
- Lives up to
- 19years
Longer than only 35% 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
38 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
- Near Threatened
- Status assessed · the year the Red List last looked
- 2016
- Population trend
- Decreasing
- Red List criteria
- A2c
The animal itself
- Limbs
- None
- Venomous
- Yes
- Fangs
- At the front of the mouth
- Longest recorded life
- 19years
Size
- Length snout to vent · greatest recorded
- 630mm2 ft 1 in
- Length snout to vent · adult female mean
- 350.4mm14 in
- Length nose to tail · greatest recorded
- 710mm2 ft 4 in
- Hatchling length · nose to tail
- 120mm4.75 in
- Body mass · greatestcomputed
- 185g6.5 oz
- Body mass at hatchingmeasured
- 3.8g0.13 oz
710 mm total length (Feldman et al. 2016), max SVL 61 cm in males, 63 in females, neonates 3.2-4.4 g, 11-13 cm, not clear if SVL or TL, I will assume TL, females mature at 27-30 cm SVL (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), Radovics et al. 2023 (mean SVLs: Vipera renardi eriwanensis males 299.11 ± 10.04 (N = 9), females: 306.7 ± 14.38 (N = 10); Vipera renardi renardi males: 306.77 ± 32.5 (N = 13), females: 394.1 ± 31.04 (N = 21)
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
- Diurnal
- Where it lives
- Fossorial
- Habitat
- Shrubland
- Biome
- Temperate Grasslands, Savannas & Shrublands
- Active season · months of the year
- 6–8months
- Region
- Palearctic
- Mainland or island
- Mainland
- Highest it lives · above sea level
- 2500m
- Range size
- 4,216,087km²
small vertebrates and arthropods (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Wang et al. 2023
Diurnal, crepuscular in summer (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
"fossorial (leaf litter, termite mounds), > 50% digging" (Gearty et al. 2021)
0-2500 (Joger and Zinenko 2021), max 1500 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023), 354-1870 (Iskenderov and Najafov 2023)
Breeding
- Reproduction
- Viviparous
- Sex decided by
- Genes, ZW/ZZ
- Average clutch
- 10eggs
- Eggs or young per clutch
- 4–24eggs
- First breeds at
- 36months
Feldman et al. 2015
4-24 (Dunayev and Orlova 2023)
Naming and history
- Suborder
- Serpentes
- Infraorder
- Alethinophidia
- Subspecies
- Vipera renardi renardi (CHRISTOPH 1861) Vipera renardi bashkirovi GARANIN, PAVLOV & BAKIEV in BAKIEV et al. 2004 Vipera renardi parursinii NILSON & ANDRÉN 2001 Vipera renardi puzanovi KUKUSKIN 2009 Vipera renardi tienshanica NILSON & ANDRÉN 2001
- Described by
- Christoph
- Moved to another genus · since it was first described
- Yes
- Described in
- 1861
- Type locality
- Russia
Keeping one
2 ft 4 in × 14 in × 21 in(71 × 36 × 53 cm)
Minimum length × width × height, for one animal. Bigger is always better. Substrate at least 14 in (36 cm) deep.
The standard sizes snakes as a fraction of total length: 1 × 0.5 × 0.75.
Burrows, so substrate deep enough to dig in matters as much as floor area.
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 4 in (710 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 Steppe 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.
20kJ per day
Worked out for an animal of 185 g, the heaviest recorded for Steppe 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
- — Largest juvenile · snout to vent
- — Largest juvenile · shell length
- — Egg length
- — Egg width
- — Body mass · a typical adult
- — Body mass · adult female, mean
- — 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
- — Mean clutch · smallest reported
- — Mean clutch · largest reported
- — 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
- — 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 renardi. Retrieved 2026-09-09, from https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-renardi
@misc{vipera_renardi_2026,
title = {Vipera renardi},
author = {{The Reptile & Amphibian Encyclopedia}},
year = {2026},
url = {https://www.allanglescreatures.com/species/vipera-renardi}
}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.