Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey Guys,

I have recently acquired a male Vipera ammodytes and he is supposed to be from the Lake Scutari reagon. He is not as orange as some others but he has some nice reddish color on him. Really good looking snake, much better in person than pictures.

My plan is to use him to stimulate my male V.xanthina for xanthina breeding season. It would be interesting to see if they are going to engage in mock battle even though they are separate species.

Thanks,
Yasin

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We are the best GALATASARAY

Awesome snake!!!

Hi Yasin, nice ammo.

Yes they will combat, I used a male xanthina for ammo to ammo breeding earlier this year. I have a rather rough picture of the two males in combat on my old phone somewhere, will try to find it.

Be careful though, my female ammo prefered the male xanthina and the whole thing never really came together.
I had a male ammo desperately trying to mate with a female ammo that would only become receptive once the xanthina was put into the viv.

All the best,
Al

Thanks a lot.

My male xanthina is more majestic and bigger so I think he will be the man of choice.

How long did you wait for them to breed? I have read in journals that xanthina becomes sexually active within two years. That sounds a little fast to me... But if that is the case, I should think of hibernating soon...

Yasin
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We are the best GALATASARAY

Hi Yasin,
Male Xanthina can be sexually mature at 18 months - 2 years. Although females can be bred at 3 years of age it would be better to wait until they are 4-5 and then only breed them every second year.

I kept mine seperate until they had their post hibernation slough, then put them together and left them for 4 weeks. During this month the male xanthina was introduced every now and then to spark things off.

All the best,
Al

The combating males were left together until one obviously lost, then one was removed.

The only time my female ammo showed any interest was when the male xanthina was in the enclosure. She would then slide around digging in the substrate with her tail elevated

I would probably choose a xanthina over a ammodytes ,too

Thanks a lot for the info.

Both my females and my male are late cb 06 so I guess I should wait another year.

So did your xanthina bred the ammodytes female? Any hybrid offspring?
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We are the best GALATASARAY

Afraid not, Yasin.
I think the male Xanthina hooked up with Mrs ammo once but I never got any little ones.

This is why I recommend you try to get another male xanthina , my breeding attempts were messed up by a combination of many things. The female wanting the male xanthina ,probably the confusing messages sent by body language and scents, the male ammo reluctant to breed as he felt he hadn't completed natural combat ect.

By the way, i'd like to thank Miqe for most of this info. Miqe has bred european herps on numerous occasions and he was very helpful to me offering advice all the time

All the best,
Al

Thanks a lot Al. And thanks to Miqe too, whoever he is .

I wonder if you can get Vipera hybrids. I haven't seen any. Of course I wouldn't wanna go there as venom composition would be quite unknown but still really interesting.

I think I will go with what I have and see what will happen. I will let you guys know.

ps: How big are your adult females? I would love to make size comparison with mine.
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We are the best GALATASARAY

Mornin' Yasin :¬)

WW knows of a natural berus x ammodytes hybrid.

I no longer have any European vipers, I sold them all on to concentrate on bitis. I just had the one male xanthina , and he was about 24 inches I guess . The adult ammodytes I had were huge and still growing as I stay in touch with the friend that bought them. When I had them they were both in excess of 30 inches and are now quite a bit bigger than that. The Ammo's were 04's and the xanthina was an 06

Good luck , and I hope they hook up for you :¬)
Al