Home / Snakes / Yılanlar / Coronella austriaca (Smooth Snake / Avusturya Yılanı)
448/450

Coronella austriaca (Smooth Snake / Avusturya Yılanı)

slideshow metadata Share on Facebook Share on Facebook
Coronella austriaca (Smooth Snake / Avusturya Yılanı)

Coronella austriaca (Smooth Snake / Avusturya Yılanı) from Uludağ, Bursa.


Smooth Snake is a harmless, non-venomous species of snake, which rarely grows larger than 80 cm (average length isabout 50 cm). It has smooth, unkeeled body scales, and hence, as a result of the smooth scales, the body and head have a shiny appearance. The head is relatively small and flat and only little distinct from the neck. Pupils are rounded. The body is relatively stout and ends with a moderately long tail that tapers to a point.
Some scalation (pholidotic) characteristics as follows: The rostral plate is visible from above, and its tip invades the suture between the internasal plates, which may even become completely separated by it as an exception; 19 (in rare instances 17 or 21) dorsal scale rows around midbody; one large preocular; two postocuIars; no suboculars; seven supralabials; 150-200 ventrals (males 150-182, females 170-200); 40-70 pairs of subcaudals; the anal plate is usually divided as is in other whip snakes (family Colubridae).
The basic coloration of this snake can vary from beige brown to medium gray, with females showing a tendency toward gray and males toward brown in many places. Very dark and black specimens are occasionally found but albinistic animals are extremely rare. The body is usually patterned with small dark spots that are arranged in pairs. These spots may occasionally be fused across or longitudinally, which, in the latter case, gives the impression of a striped pattern. These markings are most intense in the anterior part of the body, fading gradually toward the tail. Specimens with no body pattern are occasionally found. The small, ovoid head that is little distinct from the body and always appears a little darker than the body. Besides a dark stripe that runs from the nostril via the eye to the neck, there is a typical horseshoe- or U-shaped marking on the nape of the neck. The latter marking is in most cases open posteriorly, in contrast to the situation in the Southern Smooth Snake (Coronella girondica). The venter is usually uniform brown or gray, often reddish brown in juveniles, and patterned with fine dark spots only in rare exceptional individuals. Females appear distinctly more muscular and stouter than males; they also grow larger than these.
Copulation can often last for several hours and is preceded by a rather brief courtship. It consists of testing the female by means of tongue-flicking, crawling over her, and often ends with the male placing a holding bite on the female's neck. Small males occasionally position this bite on the mouth of the female if the latter is much larger than the former. Copulation may, however, also take place without any of this, and it would appear that a holding bite is most often used if the female shows herself more or less unwilling to mate. Depending on their physical condition, females may engage in reproduction every year, or only every second or third year. Common Smooth Snakes are ovoviviparous, giving birth to 2 to 16 young. Juveniles become sexually mature in their third or fourth year of life, with males often turning to reproduction-related activity before females of the same age.
It is distributed almost throughout Europe (except Ireland, northern UK, the northern parts of Scandinavia, large portions in the center and south of the Iberian Peninsula, and on many islands of the Mediterranean), Turkey (N, W and C), Caucasus and the northernmost parts of Iran. The snake inhabits open, sun-exposed, dry habitats with low vegetation that nevertheless provides good cover. Although occasionally found near bodies of water, it is rarely encountered in outright moist or wet situations. It is slow moving, calm and rarely biting species. It feeds mainly on lizards, may also prey on small rodents, chicks and snakes.
Three subspecies are recognized in its distribution area as follows:
• the nominate form, C. a. austriaca
C. a. acutirostris. It is distributed in the western parts of the Iberian Peninsula and, differs from the nominate form in having a differentiated head scalation (slender, tapering pileus) and a larger number of nuchal scales.
C. a. fitzingeri. It is restricted to southern Italy and Sicily and it is thought of as smaller, having a distinctly reduced spotted pattern and very often a strongly arched rostral plate that pushes deeply between the internasals and often separates them entirely.
*****


Kaynaklar/References & Daha Fazla Bilgi için/For More Info: 1. Göçmen, B. (Unpub. results). The results of herpetological trips. 2. Budak, A. & Göçmen, B. (2005). Herpetology. Ege Üniversitesi Fen Fakültesi Kitaplar Serisi, No. 194, Ege Üniversitesi Basimevi, Bornova-Izmir, 226 pp. [2nd Edition/2nci Baskı, 2008].   3. AdaMerOs Herptil Türkiye / Turkherptil. 4. Kreiner, G. (2007). The Snakes of Europe.Edition Chinaira, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 317 pp.


*****


Copyright ©Bayram GÖÇMEN, her hakkı saklıdır*/All rights reserved**. 


*Bu sitede yayınlanan fotoğrafların ve yazıların hakları tarafıma aittir. Fotoğraflar, yazılar ve diğer içeriğin izin alınmadan herhangi bir ortam ve biçimde kullanılması T.C. 5846 sayılı Fikir ve Sanat Eserleri Yasası'na göre suçtur. 


**The reproduction, publication, modification, transmission or exploitation of any work (photos & info submited by me) contained herein for any use, personal or commercial, without my prior written permission is strictly prohibited.

Author Bayram GÖÇMEN
Created on Sunday 30 May 2010
Posted on Thursday 20 January 2011
Tags Bursa, TURKEY / TÜRKİYE
Albums
Visits 10696