Caresheet for Long-nosed viper ( Vipera ammodytes )

Origin/Spreading:

• Italy, Austria, , Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, some Adriatic, Ionian and Aegean islands, Albania, Greece, Turkey and Transcaucasia.
Subspecies:

• Vipera ammodytes gregorwallneri: Southern to Eastern Austria and to Slovenia.
(Not considered by some as a subspecies anymore)
• Vipera ammodytes meridionalis: Southern Macedonia southern Albania, Greece to
western European Turkey.
• Vipera ammodytes montandoni: Romania, Northern Bulgaria (to the Black Sea) to European Turkey.
• Vipera ammodytes ruffoi: Only surroundings of Bolzano, Alto Adige Italy. (Not considered by some as a subspecies anymore)
• Vipera ammodytes transcaucasiana: Northern and western coastal near Turkey to Caucasus. ( Considered by some scientists to be a species of it own V. transcaucasiana )
Please note! The subspecies status is still under investigation!!
Description:

• This strong, heavily built snake becomes up to 80 cm´s long, some individuals reaches even over 95 cm. Males are larger than females. It has a typical triangular head that sets off clearly from the slim neck. On the head tip they have a diagonally forward arranged horn. 21-23 keeled scalerows. Both males and females have a dorsal zigzag-band. Males are brighter in colouration than females and have sharper markings on the dorsal zigzag-band.
Habitat:

• They prefer warm, dry areas like rocky bushy slopes, and can also be found in edge of woods or in glades. Can be found as high as 2000 meters above sea-level.
They are active during daytime till dusk and like sunny places.

Attitude:

• The animals are not aggressive normally. In case of disturbance they hiss loud and bite sometimes.

Allways handle this species with hook or tong!! Never “free handle”!!
Terrarium:

• Theese vipers should be kept in medium sized cages on a mixture of sand, loam and forest earth. Interior with large stones/slabs and roots/branches to make it look natural, make sure that there are hiding places.

• SECURITYTIP: Make sure that the terrarium are set up in a way, that makes you able too see the whole interior area without opening it. That way you can always “count-in” you’re animal/s, so that so you don’t become surprised by a hiding snake.

• A drinking container with fresh water is needed at all times.
• Temperatures between 24-28ºC, with a baskingspot under witch 32-35ºC are reached. Temperatures dropping at night to 20 ºC. Spray gently with water in the morning, a little extra in the evening when the animal/s are shedding.
• No UV-B vitamins/lightning are required for the species.
Reproduction:

• The species requires a hibernationperiod for about 8-10 weeks at temperatures between 0-7ºC. Livebearers, 5-18 young that are15-22 cm´s long at birth. Males wrestle with each other before mating with the female. Mating season in the nature is April to May, in captivity 1-3 weeks after hibernation is over and the males have shed.

Venom:

• The venom is probably the strongest of the European vipers, except for
Macrovipera schweizeri and Montivipera xanthina. Haematoxin. Life-threatening or deadly bites are expressed rare, usually it comes to local symptoms of intoxication. Pain is usually strong, a swelling occurs within 2 hours of time.
Among the general symptoms of intoxication one ranks: vomiting, beating of the heart, cramps, shock, possibly swindles and unconsciousness.
In case of bite, visit nearest hospital immediately!
Food:

• Mice, young rats. In the nature they eat rodents, rarely lizards and birds.
Good luck with your animal!

This caresheet can be found at Terrarium Morbidum – Captive bred European herptiles at www.terrariummorbidum.se

Link to the caresheet ( pdf-file).

Little lizards make big money for Indonesian villagers

JAKARTA (Reuters Life!) – A tiny Indonesian lizard has become big business for impoverished villagers in Indonesia, where growing Asian demand for reptile-based traditional medicines has driven a boom in gecko farming.

Geckos — the pale, soft-skinned lizard with a distinctive call — are abundant in Indonesia and are believed by Chinese and Korean traditional medicine devotees to help cure cancer as well as skin and respiratory diseases.

In rural Banjarsawah village, on the eastern half of Java island, struggling farmers have discovered geckos make a surprisingly lucrative commodity.

Tohasyim, 32, a farmhand who earns 10,000 rupiah (about $1) a day feeding other people’s cattle, now makes 1 million rupiah or about $110 a month hunting geckos in a local forest.

“I start hunting the geckos in the evening after I finish my job, feeding other people’s cattle. I normally start hunting the geckos at 6 in the evening until 5 in the morning,” said Tohasyim, who, like many Indonesians, has only one name.

The industry began four years ago when one villager, Abdurrahman, began drying geckos at home and selling them to an exporter.

Now, more than 100 hunters scour the forest nightly catching the skittering lizards and delivering them to Abdurrahman, 40, who delivers them to the exporter.

Most villagers in Banjarsawah are now involved in dried gecko production. Hunters venture into the forest in groups of four or five, wearing battery-powered head lamps and catching the lizards with their gloved hands.

About a dozen workers, mostly housewives, spend days stretching, drying, and packing the lizards. They often work from 7 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon in the dark woven bamboo house of the industry’s owner. When demand is high, they work even longer. These workers earn about 20,000 rupiah per day.

“My job is stretching the geckos. I get 525,000 rupiah per month. I think this is enough to cover our day-to-day needs,” said Hobiah, a farmer’s wife who is pregnant with her second child and has been working in the industry for almost six months.

The high season for gecko hunting is during Indonesia’s rainy period, from December to February.

Abdurrahman, a father of two, said he cannot disclose how much he earns from his gecko business, but he says he’s happy with what he makes.

“On average, every three days we can get 5,000 to 10,000 geckos collected by hunters and we produce a maximum of 1,600 dried geckos in a day,” he said.

He sells the geckos in pairs. One pair in good condition costs 4,000 rupiah, while a damaged pair missing the tails fetches 2,000 rupiah.

But gecko hunting has got environmentalists alarmed. R. Tri Prayudhi, a campaigner at East Java-based conservationist group ProFauna said that while the animals were not endangered, they played an important role in the ecological system and should remain in the wild.

“The gecko is a wild animal and should not be traded. The problem is that there is no protection for these animals in Indonesia. We have a principle that a wild animal belongs in nature,” Prayudhi said.

(Editing by Sunanda Creagh and Miral Fahmy)

From: Reuters India

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I really, really wish that the poor people working with the catch, would be taught and assisted in breeding the geckos, insteda. Perhaps catch a number of the species, and keeping them for breeding. It sounds more like a “win/win”- situation to me..

// Miqe