Reptiles of Argentea

Coluber
The coluber has a slender body with the ovoid head. The scales on the back are smooth. The colours of this snake are variable: the yellow is interrupted from black spots more or less extended, arranged in echelon formation. In the end of the tail these spots are merged forming longitudinal strips. The young colubers are distinguishable, from the adults, for the grey-tawny back, dark punctated, and from the blackish head with yellow punctated strips. The coluber can be 200 cm, even if many times reaches the 150 cm. The coluber is a diurnal species and mostly terricolous. It occupies cliffs, bushes, stony grounds, cultivated, glades and edges of the forests. It prefers the dry, sunny environment, and with a rich vegetation. Between April and June happens the mating and in July are laid 5-15 eggs. Between the end of August and September the eggs hatch and are born young of 20-25 cm. It moves fast and agile, hunting on sight and chasing the prey. The captured prey is swallowed still alive. The adults of coluber feed on lizards, small mammalian, frogs or other snakes. The young colubers, instead, limit the hunting to the lizards and the grasshoppers. The coluber is rather aggressive and mordacious. In fact, in case of capture, the bite is the better weapon of defence. It does not fear neither own similar neither vipers.

Malpolon - Colubro Lacerino
The Coluber Lacerino is Italian and reaches considerable dimensions: in fact exemplary of beyond 2 meters of length exist, even if, like in all Italian colubers, the "standard" measure is around one meter and fifty. It appears like a massive and powerful snake, and the head is the main distinction method, because has an only morphology as regard as the others Italian colubers: in fact, the species presents a very narrow, pronounced and thin head, it has very big eyes, of tawny-reddish colour; but the true particularity consists that the supraorbital arches of the snake are so marked and bulging, that form a kind of basin on the upper part of the snout. The scales do not present a visible fairing, so the skin appears enough smooth to the touch, and the scales are present, generally, in 17-20 rows to half body. Other considerable characteristic of the Coluber Lacerino is to possess a grooved teeth to the base of the upper jaw, with one poisonous gland ( poison to lowest toxicity).
The coloration of the adults is generally joint, greyish or olive-coloured, also tawny, and sometimes appear slight punctations. In some exemplary the livery darks by the hips, while the stomach appears yellow with dark spots. In the young exemplary the livery is punctated of tawny or black, on a grey or greenish colour. Its feeding is constituted from saurian, but also rodents and birds, all preys captured thanks to the poisonous apparatus. There are different cases of predation on other snakes, also to vipers, and other situations in which big exemplary have not hesitated to attack adult ocellated lizards. The toxicity of the poison, even if very low, is sufficient to cause the dead of the small prey in little minutes. Using the big eyes, it hunts mostly on sight, and the bite prey are follow thanks to this particularly developed sense. Often, in "hunting trim", this snake moves flattening the body and, with the lifted neck, swings the head. Typically terricolous, it is active during the diurnal hours. The reproduction takes place in April -May, and the lay happens under a stone or in some other repaired gorge, and concerns a number of egg from 10 to 20. The small colubers feed mostly on bugs, like beetles and locusts, and, in case of need, on small lizards. If threatened, it can often try to bite, and generally the bite is preceded by sonorous hisses and a flattening of the neck; sometimes, before attacking, the animal erects the fore part of the body, like when it hunts. The man does not run risks in bite case, because it’s rare that the coluber is able to make penetrate the poison in the wound, and, in any case, the most serious symptoms can be manifested badly disguised as swellings and headache.
PROTECTED from norms of regional character in the areas in which it is present.

Natrix Natrix
The natrix or ring snake, is without doubt the more diffused coluber in Italy. Unprovided of teethes and inoffensive, it measure approximately a meter of length; the females are larger of the males. Behind the head it has a distinguished, yellow or orange collar, followed from two great black spots, connected in the neck. The back is olive green, more or less dark, while the stomach is clear; the sides of the body and the stomach are scattered of black spots. It prefers the glades, heaths and the proximity of the water points; you can meet it also in the stony ground and near the brackish waters of the matting. Its shelter consists in a hollow stump, a rock crack or an old lair of mammal. It’s very agile, it’s able to escape to the attempt at capture, but also who succeeds to catch it, will let go one’s hold, since, under the effect of the fear, it emits a secretion of an unpleasant smell. It’s a particularly voracious snake and, thanks to its extensible mouth, can swallow relatively large prey. To the amphibians, that represent the essential part of its diet, sometimes it adds lizards, young birds, small mammalian and fishes.
The enemies are predators, waders and some carnivore. The mating ceremonial takes place in April-May; the eggs are laid in June and July, in places where the temperature is favourable to their development, as the heaps of manure in proximity of the small farms, of sheaves of hay, heaps of leaves in decomposition, cavity of trees.
The ring snake is well-known from the peasants, because tied to old legends; it’s accused for example to suck the milk from the udders of the cows, even if the conformation of the snakes mouth is not adapted to carry out these functions. This legend, perhaps, comes from the fact that, in captivity, this snake accept to drink the milk if the water is not at disposal. Or because, if a large female is crushed, its abdomen is full of a cream liquid, similar to the milk, that is the yolk of the numerous eggs, contained in the oviducts. Moreover, the research of warm places, that induces the females to get near the stables, contributes to give greater credit to the legend.

Coluber
In Italy this very long snake can reach 2 meters, and is indicated also with the name of “Colubro d' Esculapio”. The Coluber name indicates the own characteristic of this animal, that is the speed (thunderbolt), while the second name comes from the Latin tradition that associates it to Esculapio, the health God that had represented it on the magical rod, still today symbol of the medicine. the more typical coloration is yellow-brown with olive, greyish or reddish tints; more or less on the lip of the scales there are yellowish or whitish little spots; the ventral yellowish part, can have a dotting. By the sides of the head two blackish bars are interposed between the eyes to two clear yellow spots, situated in the back, that end near the mouth.
The habitat is from the sea level until 2000 meters, even if the standard does not exceed the 1600 m and the environments can be both warm and dry, both humid or protected; in Italy we generally meet it in the dry areas. It’s the most agile Italian snake, it’s an optimal runner, but also an agile climber, quality that utilises for preying the birds and their eggs; its diet comprises moreover a great variety of mammals, hunted with the ambush technique and killed for constriction. The dormancy begins in autumn and ends in spring, passing this period to the inside of the trunks cavities, between cliffs or within the lairs abandoned of the rodents. The Colubers mate towards the end of May and in summer the female lays from 5 to 20 eggs that will open towards September. It’s one of the European snakes more in danger of extinction.

Viper
The common viper (Vipera aspis) is not an aggressive animal and attacks the man if disturbed or treaded on. The poison is inject through two teeth and is sufficient to kill, in short time, the small animals of which it feeds. For a man the time of action of the poison is of 3-6 hours and so the unlucky, or better the careless, hiker has all the time to wrap and to immobilise the area, in order to go to the nearest hospital. The action of the poison on the man is very rarely lethal and depends on the conditions of the bitten, on the interested area and on the quantity of poison, but generally it’s not sufficient to kill someone. An excessive alarmism is to condemn because it can be more harmful than the bite of the reptile.
We could be sure to find ourselves in front of a common viper if we observe the snout clearly turned upward, the triangular and flattened head, the squat and cuts tail and the eye with yellowish iris and vertical pupil, as a slit. The preferred places from these snakes are the open and sunny spaces with insufficient vegetation, like stony places and walls. From October to the first days of March the vipers, alone or with other amphibious and reptiles, take shelter in underground lairs, fissures of the land or dry-walls and enter in a state of latency, isolated from the outside in order to prevent to the temperature to fall under the tolerable threshold. The common viper does not seem to have regular predators, occasionally can be the meal of carnivores, like the marten, the wild boar and the curl, or some birds (crows, eagles, pheasants). The man is its more feared enemy, in fact, considering these snakes dangerous, he does not hesitate to kill them.