Vipera lotievi NILSON, TUNIYEV, ORLOV, HOGGREN & ANDREN, 1995
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Vipera lotievi
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| Higher Taxa | Viperidae, Viperinae, Colubroidea, Caenophidia, Alethinophidia, Serpentes, Squamata (snakes) |
| Subspecies | |
| Common Names | E: Lotiev’s viper G: Lotievs Otter Russian: Гадюка Лотиева |
| Synonym | Vipera lotievi NILSON et al. 1995: 21 Vipera berus — (fide KHALIKOV, pers. comm.) Vipera ursini renardi — (fide KHALIKOV, pers. comm.) Vipera (Pelias) lotievi — NILSON et al. 1999: 103 Vipera lotievi — MCDIARMID, CAMPBELL & TOURÉ 1999: 406 Vipera renardi lotievi — DELY & JOGER 2005 Pelias lotievi — WALLACH et al. 2014: 544 Pelias lotievi — BEKOSHVILI & DORONIN 2015 Pelias lotievi — TUNIYEV 2016 Pelias lotievi — ISKENDEROV et al. 2017 Pelias lotievi — DUNAEV & ORLOVA 2017 Pelias lotievi — TUNIYEV et al. 2019: 147 |
| Distribution | Russia (northern slope of Caucasus), Azerbaijan Type locality: “Armkhi, Checheno-Ingushetia, Russia, below Mt. Stolovaya, 2000 m. altitude”. |
| Reproduction | ovovivparous |
| Types | Holotype: ZISP (ZIL) 20309, female; paratypes: ZISP |
| Diagnosis | Diagnosis: A species of the Vipera ursinii complex characterized by polymorphism in color-pattern, including "bilineate pattern" of the same kind as in V. seanei, and "bronze" unimorphs. External morphology evolved as typical for mountain taxa of the ursinii complex but not similar to any of the other in color pattern. From the sympatric "east-dinniki" it differs in several scalation characters and in color of the belly (Table 9, Fig. 11). In lotievi the belly is generally white, preocular in contact with nasal, snout concave, 138 or more ventrals, always a single apical, less fragmentized crown scales (7-16), parietal ocellated spot present, iris not gold-edged in life. In "east-dinniki" the belly is black, preocular separated from nasal, snout not concave, 136 or less ventrals, apical single or divided, more fragmentized crown scales (10-21), no parietal ocellated spot, iris gold-edged in life. From the allopatric renardi it differs besides color pattern in morphology by having light supralabials (sutures heavily colored in black in renardi), a higher rostral index, smaller size, white belly (dark in renardi), and a different niche by being alpine (renardi is a lowland steppe inhabitant). No future reproductive cohesion can be postulated. It is separated from the likewise allopatric eriwanensis in the Armenian highlands by the semidesert lowland of the Kura River Valley, that separates the Big Caucasus from the Small Caucasus. No connection can be postulated in an evolutionary time frame. Besides color pattern there is a differentiation in morphology by eriwanensis having a higher number of crown scales and a somewhat lower ventral count, and preocular separated from nasal to a higher degree (Tables 10 and 11). (Nilson et al. 1995) Additional details (346 characters) are available for collaborators and contributors. Please contact us for details. |
| Comment | Venomous! Synonymy: V. lotievi is nested within V. renardi (F. Martínez-Freiría, pers. comm., 5 Sep 2019, SEH) |
| Etymology | Named after K. Yu Lotiev, a Russian herpetologist who collected the viper holotype (1986). |
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