Cerastes boehmei
| Cerastes boehmei | ||||||||||||
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Cerastes boehmei |
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| Cerastes boehmei | ||||||||||||
| Wagner & Wilms , 2010 |
Cerastes boehmei is a viper species of the genus Cerastes first described in 2010with a central occurrence in Tunisia . The species was described by Philipp Wagner and Thomas Wilms . The specific epithet boehmei honors the German herpetologist Wolfgang Böhme for his contributions to African herpetology.
features
Cerastes boehmei has a long, slender body that is flattened and oval in cross-section. The juvenile holotype is 21.8 cm long. The head is flattened, triangular and clearly set off from the neck. The small to medium-sized eyes are on the sides of the head, but are slightly upward. Their pupils are vertically elliptical. The croissants above the eyes do not consist of a single, long over-eye scale ( subocularia ), as in the desert horned viper ( C. cerastes ) and the Arabian horned viper ( C. gasperettii ), but are composed of several medium-sized scales. The nostrils are slit-shaped. Below the eyes there are 25 under-eye shields ( subocularia ), and the snakes have 11 to 12 upper lip shields ( supralabials ).
The number of abdominal scales ( scutum ventrale ) is 110, that of tail scales ( scutum subcaudale ) is 25. 19 rows of scales are counted around the front body 21 or 26 around the middle part of the torso and 16 around the rear body. The 107 scales along the spine are not enlarged
Cerastes boehmei is a solid yellowish to sand color with some darker patterns on the middle and back of the body.
Habitat and way of life
Cerastes boehmei has so far only been found in central Tunisia near Beni Kadeche and the species may be endemic to the region . Almost nothing is known about the viper's way of life. Because of their coloration, it is believed to inhabit sandy habitats. A captive female gave birth to five live young, suggesting a close relationship with the ovoviviparous Avicennaviper ( Cerastes vipera ).
literature
- Philipp Wagner & Thomas M. Wilms: A crowned devil: new species of Cerastes Laurenti, 1768 (Ophidia, Viperidae) from Tunisia, with two nomenclatural comments. Bonn zoological Bulletin, Volume 57, Issue 2, pp. 297–306 First description (PDF; 776 kB)