The green whip snake or western whip snake (''Hierophis viridiflavus'') is a species of

snake Snakes are elongated limbless reptiles of the suborder Serpentes (). Cladistically squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales much like other members of the group. Many species of snakes have s ...

in the family

Colubridae Colubridae (, commonly known as colubrids , from , 'snake') is a family of snakes. With 249 genera, it is the largest snake family. The earliest fossil species of the family date back to the Late Eocene epoch, with earlier origins suspected. C ...

Geographic range and subspecies

This species is present in Andorra, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, and possibly Luxembourg. Currently two subspecies are distinguished, a melanic (''H. v. carbonarius'') and a striped form (''H. v. viridiflavus''). The melanic form occurs in the eastern part of the range and the striped in the western part, with a contact zone throughout most of northern Italy.

Habitat

Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are temperate

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s, temperate

shrubland Shrubland, scrubland, scrub, brush, or bush is a plant community characterized by vegetation dominance (ecology), dominated by shrubs, often also including grasses, herbaceous plant, herbs, and geophytes. Shrubland may either occur naturally o ...

, Mediterranean-type shrubby vegetation,

arable land Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...

, pastureland,

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

s, rural gardens, and

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

Description

The green whip snake is a slender species with a small but well-defined head, prominent eyes with circular pupils, and smooth scales. The background colour is greenish-yellow but this is mostly obscured by heavy, somewhat irregular bands of dark green or black, particularly in the front half of the snake. The underparts are grey or yellowish and the tail has narrow longitudinal stripes. The young are a greyish colour and develop their full adult colouring by about their fourth year. This snake grows to a total length of about . In the northeastern part of its range, in Sicily and southern Italy, most individuals are blackish in colour. There is a larger, up to long, often pure black variant – ''Coluber viridiflavus carbonarius'' (Bonaparte, 1833) – found in Italy and

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

. referred to there as 'Il Biacco'. Viridiflavus-Lorraine-IMG 4974

Status

The green whip snake has a wide distribution and is very common within that range. The population is steady and faces no significant threats, apart from road kill and persecution, and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has assessed its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

Biology

These snakes mainly feed on lizards, skinks, frogs, mice, as well as on the young and eggs of small birds. This species lays four to 15 eggs. They are very lively and when cornered, may bite furiously. They hibernate in winter.

Venom

Commonly regarded as non-venomous, it is described that a subject who endured 'sustained biting' of up to 5 minutes began showing suspect symptoms, including problems with neuromotor skills. The presence of modified rear maxillary fangs in correspondence to a gland called the

Duvernoy's gland The Duvernoy's gland is a gland found in some groups of ''colubridae, colubrid'' snakes. It is distinguished from the venom gland and is not found in ''viperidae, viperids'' or ''elapidae, elapids''. It was named for France, French zoologist Geo ...

, similar to the venom gland and involved in the production of toxins, has recently been discovered.

References

{{Authority control Hierophis Reptiles described in 1789 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Reptiles of Europe Taxa named by Bernard Germain de Lacépède