What does the horned desert viper eat?
Horned vipers are carnivores that mainly depend on terrestrial vertebrates. Their diet includes lizards, rodents, and birds. These snakes immediately attack their prey and paralyze them with their venom.
What do Desert Viper eat?
The Desert Horned Viper – like all snakes, a meat eater – preys primarily on lizards but also on mammals and birds that inhabit its arid environment. It often lies in ambush, just beneath the sand with only its horns and eyes exposed, poised to explode from its cover and strike its victim with stunning swiftness.
Are desert horned vipers poisonous?
Cerastes cerastes, commonly known as the Saharan horned viper or the desert horned viper, is a venomous species of viper native to the deserts of northern Africa and parts of the Arabian Peninsula and Levant.
How do horned vipers survive in the desert?
The Desert Horned Viper lives in the desert. They usually bury themselves in the sand in order to keep cool in the desert heat. They overwinter in the borrowed burrows of rodents or burrowing lizards.
How does the horned viper get water?
The desert horned viper can be found in the SAHARA desert. It is the most commonly found snake in North Africa. The horned viper is able to acquire a sufficient amount of freshwater in the desert, where water is not easily accessible. They can trap morning dew in their scales, which is crucial to their survival.
What eats a horned desert viper?
Main predators of horned vipers are monitors, honey badgers and wild and feral cats. When horned viper is faced with danger, it curls the body and produces rasping sound by rubbing keeled scales together.
Where do desert horned vipers live?
Northern Africa
Found throughout the Sahara in Northern Africa, C. cerastes inhabits a variety of habitats within the desert, including rock hills, sandy deserts, and wadis. Members of this species can sometimes be found in dunes, and are rarely found on rock pavement and gravel plains.
How long does a viper live?
Gaboon vipers live for about 20 years.
How long can vipers be?
They are less than 2 feet (61 centimeters) long, according to National Geographic. The longest viper — and the longest venomous snake in the Americas — is the South American Bushmaster (Lachesis muta), which grows to more than 11 feet (335 cm), according to the University of Michigan’s Animal Diversity Web (ADW).
How long does vipers snake bite last?
Local swelling : Viper bites produce more intense local reaction than other snakes. Swelling may become apparent within 15 minutes and becomes massive in 2-3 days. It may persist for up to 3 weeks. The swelling spreads rapidly from the site of the bite and may involve the whole limb and adjacent trunk.
What is a horned viper used for?
They help to control populations of rodents that often disturb livestock and food sources of local people. Other common names of this species include desert sidewinding horned viper, Sahara horned viper, desert horned viper, North African horned viper, African desert horned viper, greater cerastes, asp and horned viper.
What is the scientific name for a desert viper?
Other common names of this species include desert sidewinding horned viper, Sahara horned viper, desert horned viper, North African horned viper, African desert horned viper, greater cerastes, asp and horned viper. In Egypt, these snakes are called el-ṭorîsha (حية الطريشة); in Libya, they are called um-Goron (ام قرون).
What is the size of a horned viper?
( “Cerastes cerastes (Desert Horned Viper)”, 2004; Johann, 1973; Mermod, 1970; Norris, 2000) Sahara horned vipers are amongst the most distinct of the North African desert snakes. Compared to most snakes in the region, this species is short in length, averaging between 30 and 60 cm. Hatchlings are usually between 12 and 15 cm.
What is the physical description of a Sahara horned viper?
Physical Description. Sahara horned vipers are amongst the most distinct of the North African desert snakes. Compared to most snakes in the region, this species is short in length, averaging between 30 and 60 cm. Hatchlings are usually between 12 and 15 cm.