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424 Book Reviews Brodmann-Kron, P. (1987): Die Giftschlangen

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424 Book Reviews Brodmann-Kron, P. (1987): Die Giftschlangen 424 BookReviews Brodmann-Kron,P.(1987): Die Giftschlangen Europasund die Gattung Vipera inAfrika und Asien. Kümmerly+Frey, 148 pp. Thisisa book that deals with all poisonous snakesin Europe andmost ofthose inwest Asia and north Africa.Thebook consists of148 pages and includes morethan 300 colour, andsome black and white, photosof snakes andhabitats aswell assome drawings. Afterhaving readthe book once Iknew thatit was a bookwith extremely goodillustrations, writtenby a person whoobviously lovedthe vipers, andwho clearly hadavery good knowledge aboutthe subject. Thefact that he has succeeded intaking suchlarge and good seriesofphotos ofthe taxa concerned, aswell as most related habitats, isimpressive. Thisbook also shows thatPeter Brodmann knowsmost of thespecies andsubspecies fromthe field, which indeed veryfew per- sonsdotoday, orhave ever done. Thebook ismainly abook ofphotos of vipers of thegenus Vipera. Thisis also stated bythe author inthe introduction.Assuch itis the best book published. Mosttaxa are also presented withahabitat picture. This isexiting as,if onelooks carefully, itis also possible tosee some viper somewhere inthe grass oramongst the rocks.This gives agood picture ofthe habitat andillustrates whereone can see such aviper. Manyofthe photos show untouched snakesin the field, while others arearranged togive that feeling. A baskingfemale ofVipera ursiniiwettsteini fromtheBasses Alpsis really anice unarranged pictureas is also the casewith some Vipera aspisand V. berus pictures. Butmostly thesnake isaffected whichmeans thatit has firstbeen caught andthen placed ina safe place forphotographing. Somephotos areobviously ofcaptive snakes.Ihave seen some of thephotographed specimensalive incaptivity atdifferent placesin Switzerland. Thisdoes not, however, reduce theinformative valueofthe book. Insome cases itis not possible to photographsnakesinthe wild. For instance, Vaperaberus sachalinensis, isfor military reasons impossible tosee inthe wild for Europeans, butstill possible tophotograph asSoviet herpetologists cango to Sachalin and collectspecimens. Viperalatifii and Vipera bornmuelleri occurinareas heavily involved inwarfare andtheir habitatshaveconsequently beenimpossible tovisit for several years. Thebook isprimarily apicture book. There isno actually newinformation inthe text but Brodmann has succeededinsummarizing publishedknowledge aboutvipers rather well. Itis fairly "up to date". Itis not a scientificpublication, although thetext can clearly beused by scientists wanting tosummarize whatis knownabout certain species orgroups. Thetext isdivided intoa systematic partwhere allspecies and subspeciesarediscussed anddescribed. Thesystematic partispreceded bya more general partcovering subjectssuchas: reason whypoisonous snakesexist, enemies, threat,venom andthe venomous apparatus, activitiesduringthe year (hibernation, reproduction etc.). Someminor technical errorscould bementioned. Infigure 24one preocularia hasbeen called lorealia, andin the text tophoto 4,page 129, areference tophoto 2don the same page ismade wrongly indicating thatitis the same snake, aTurkish Vipera raddeikurdistanica, butphoto 2d shows aV. r. raddei fromUSSR. Theauthor shows some healthy disagreement tosome new local forms described butstill gives them alot of spaceinthe book. Taxa like the Austrian Viperaammodytes andgregorwallnerithe Italian Vammodytes ruffoi, whichindeed arelocal taxa with arestricted distribution andmore orless doubtful taxonomic relevance, are comparativelyoverrepresented amongthephotos. There are 16 photos ofV. a. ruffoi, butonly 9of the nominatesubspecies V.a. ammodytes (+ threeof hybrids), andonly six of subspecies likemontandoni and transcaucasiana.Thisispartly due to the specific behaviours shownby these snakes. Ina series of picturesthe ruffoiise.g. eating. However, thewidespread V.a. ammodytes onthe Balkan peninsula showamarked local variationbetween different valleys ormountains (anumber ofso called "substrate races") andexpress herebyaninteresting variation whichcould beworth showing. Thesituation forthe Swiss vipers isa little special,probably reflecting thenationality ofthe author. Three subspecies ofVipera aspis occur inSwitzer- land.Vipera aspisatra has its main distribution inSwitzerland, whileVipera aspisaspis, withits main distribu- tioninFrance penetrates just intowestern Switzerland-in the Juramountains, andVipera aspis francisciredi, withitsmain distribution inItaly can be found insouthernmost Switzerland. Almostall photos ofthe two latersubspecies comefrom their comparatively smallSwiss ranges. These taxa express somemorphological variationandit wouldhave been nice to see also specimens fromother parts of the range. The specimensofVipera a.aspis from e.g. Massif CentralinFrance can look rather different tothose from the Juramountains. Otherwise common andwidespread taxaare well represented onphotos. Thisis good as suchspecies show a lot of variation. Thus,Vipera berusis found on42 photos, andwith the nominate subspecies,V.b. berus, represented on26 pictures. Themorphs withinverted pattern orwith thelight-edged zig-zagband, that locally canbe seen incentral Europe (e.g.Wettstein, 1929),are lacking. Somemore or lessrare taxa occurring Europe, outsidesuchas V. ursinii anatolica,V.raddei kurdistanica, V.I. lebetina, Vm. mauritanicaandV. m. deserti arerepresented bya single photo each. 425 Fromthetext tothe photos ofVipera latifii 127) (p.one gets the opinion thatmales aremore contrasting in colour thanfemales. Thisis, however, notthe case inthis Both sexescanpatternhave thesame colourand thesame extremely asthepolymorphic two species.on 126. exactly ground exactly pattern specimenspage Brodmanngenerally statesthat when melanism occursabout 30% of thelocal population ismelanistic. Onegiven example isthe population ofVipera seoanei cantabrica atLeon in Spain. Itis not clear from where he gotthis figure. Ihave not seen any publication basedonan accurate population studyfrom this area. Dur- ingthe SEH symposium inLeon some years agowe spent some days atthis locality studying cantabrica. We saw17specimens, allnormal incolour! Onthe other hand melanism inVipera berusin Swedish populations seemstostabilize between 40and 50% inall those populations wheremelanism occurs. I missdistribution maps.Although moreor less exact maps can be seen inmany fieldguides, Ithink the bookwould have benefitted ifmaps had been included, thusmaking thedescription complete. However, distributionsaregiven inthe text and some minor errors inactual ranges canbe noted. Vipera ursinii eriwanensisoccursfurther westthan the town Kars ineastern T'urkish Anatolia asis stated onpage 99.Eiselt (1976)reported itfrom the Palandöken mountains southofErzurum further westin Turkey. Some errors, ornever verified doubtful records thatare reproduced throughearlier generations ofbooks, will easily also showupin a book like this where thetext mainly isbased onpublished information. Thestated occurrence ofVipera ammodytes trauscaucasiana andV. ammodytes rneridionalisin Iran and Lebanon respectively aresuch neververified statements (seee.g. Haas, 1951; Latifi, 1987). Theauthor isconservative intaxonomy inthe sense that he uses the old names Vipera andAgkistrodon in- steadof DaboiaandCloydius fororiental vipers andpitvipers respectively. Forstability andreasons thatwill begiven elsewhere (e.g.Gloyd andConant, inprep.) I agree with Brodmann. Allsubspecies arediscussed forall known taxaexcept inone case: Vipera kaznakovi. Theform dinnicki haslong been considered asa mountainsubspecies ofkaznakovi bySoviet herpetologists (e.g.Darevsky, 1956),which alsowas indicated byJoger (1984), although notalways accepted assuch bysome west European authors. Further, itwas recentlyraisedto species level,Vipera dinnicki, together withthe description ofa newspecies, Viperadarevskii (OrlovandTuniyev, 1986;Vedmederja etal., 1986). Thesetwospecies (alt.subspecies) arethe only recently discovered taxathat are not included. Otherwise thenewly discovered speciesVipera barani, V.wagneri, V.bulgardaghica andV. albicornuta areincluded. The authorfollows Joger(1984) whoraised thesubspecific nameeriwanensis tovalidity instead of ebneri forthe subalpinesubspecies ofVipera ursinii inIran, Turkey andArmenian-USSR. Theway the Latin name bilineataisused about thebanded morph ofVipem seoanei(e.g. p. 108) isperhaps unlucky as"bilineata" isa juniorsynonym toa German Vipera b.berus (Vipera (Pelias) berusforma bilineata T.Reuss 1924). When discussingthegenus Agkistrodon ( = Gloydius) Brodmannlists all old world species butone: Agkistrodon in- termedius,whichclearly isa good species (Gloyd andConant, 1982). Theonly taxonomic statement withwhich I cannot agree ismade inthe reference list!Brodmann "elucidates"manyofthe references byadding words orshort sentences, e.g.in the reference ofZarewskij (1917)which reads inthe Brodmann version: "Formes nouvelles dugenre Vipera, trouvées dansI'Empire Russe:Vipera ligrinasp. n. (Vipera ursiniirenardi) etVipera berussachalinensis var.nova? ..." and where the scientificnamesare added asinformation byBrodmann tothe reader. " Vipera ursiniirenardi" isadded by Brodmannashis interpretation ofwhat the name tigrina isa synonym of.This isthe first time tigrina iscon- sideredasa synonymofV. ursinii renardi. Thetaxon tigrina hasin all past taxonomic literature been placedasa synonym ofV kaznakovi, orof dinnicki whenthelatter hasbeen separated fromkaznakovi. Theonly exceptionisKramer (1961) whosynonymized dinnickiwith renardi, butwho treated tzgrina asa synonym
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