Vipera ursinii rakosiensis at the Last Remaining Site for this Subspecies in Romania ............4 Table 1 : Urgent Priority Actions for the Meadow Viper Vipera ursinii ...................................................5 

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... Cappelluti/Chiara Braschi , Ministero dell’Ambiente e della Tutela del Territorio e del Mare, Rome, Italy Keith Corbett (former Chair of the Conservation Committee of the Societas Europaea Herpetologica, retired), New Zealand Stela Drucioc/V. Turcanu , Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Chisinau, Moldova Jacques Fretey , Société Nationale de Protection de la Nature (SNPN), Paris, France Patrick Haffner , Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, France Valerie Georgiev , Ministry of Environment and Water, Sofia, Bulgaria Ioan Ghira , Romanian Herpetological Society, Cluj, Romania Maja Gluhacovi ć , State Institute for Nature Protection, Zagreb, Croatia Alexandru Iftime , “Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History, Bucharest, Romania Eduard Kletecki , Croatian Natural History Museum, Zagreb, Croatia László Krecsák, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary Claude Miaud , Université de Savoie, Le Bourget du Lac, France Katja Poboljsaj , Centre for Cartography of Fauna and Flora (CKFF), Ljubljana, Slovenia Richard Podloucky (Chair of the Group of Experts of the Conservation of Amphibians and Reptiles), Niedersächsischer Landesbetrieb für Wasserwirtschaft, Küsten- und Naturschutz (NLWKN), Hannover, Germany Demetra Spala , Ministry of the Environment, Athens, Greece Anton Stumpel (Chair of the Conservation Committee of the Societas Europaea Herpetologica), Alterra, Green World Research, Waginingen, the Netherlands Jean-Pierre Vacher , Société Herpétologique de France (SHF), Strasbourg, France The European meadow viper was discovered by Count Orsini on the Apennine massif of Gran Sasso in central Italy, and was first formally described by Bonaparte (1835) as Pelias ursinii . Boulenger (1893) subsequently renamed the species Vipera ursinii . After the collection of further specimens in various parts of southern and central Europe, many years of taxonomic debate about the relationships of this species with the other European vipers then followed. To complicate matters further, Vipera ursinii is itself part of a species complex – the closely related meadow and steppe vipers of the Vipera subgenus Acridophaga – so its taxonomy has taken some time to resolve. For much of the 20 th Century, while various authors continued to dispute the arrangement of species and subspecies boundaries, all populations of this complex were simply assigned to Vipera ursinii . A thorough revision of the systematics of the meadow and steppe viper complex was finally undertaken by Nilson and Andrén (2001). As a result, the following subspecies of Vipera ursinii are currently recognised: The first three taxa listed are montane forms, generally occurring between 900 and 3000 m, while the last two are thought to be found mainly in lowland habitats below 800 m. The distribution in Europe of each is shown in Figure 1. The morphological differences between the subspecies are often subtle, and specimens may be difficult to classify without locality information. Although many aspects of their biology and ecology are also similar, these taxa may face quite different conservation problems and political situations in the various range countries and they are therefore treated separately here where appropriate. Many papers that predate Nilson and Andrén (2001) report the occurrence of Vipera ursinii in countries other than those listed above. However, such accounts refer to taxa that, although they are still part of the meadow and steppe viper species complex, are no longer assigned to Vipera ursinii itself. For example, the steppe viper Vipera renardi , which occurs from Eastern Europe to China, has been variously referred to in the literature as a full species, or as the subspecies Vipera ursinii renardi . The same is the case for Vipera anatolica , V. ebneri , V. eriwanensis and V. lotievi , although all have now all been assigned full species status. Such species are therefore disregarded in this Species Action Plan, even if older references or maps indicate that they should have been included. Useful summaries of the taxonomic history of the meadow viper species complex are provided by Böhme (1993) and Mallow et al (2003). It should be noted that the status of Vipera ursinii is still not entirely clear and that further revisions can be expected. 1. Orsini’s meadow viper Vipera ursinii ursinii – alpine areas of southeast France (12 populations currently known) and central Italy (about 20 populations). 2. Balkan meadow viper Vipera ursinii macrops – recorded on various mountains in the Dinaric Alps, along the north west coast of the Balkan Peninsula, in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and northern Albania. About 20 known locations but more probably exist. May also have reached the mountains of western Bulgaria, where it is now considered to be extinct. 3. Greek meadow viper Vipera ursinii graeca – endemic to the southern Pindos Mountains of north- central Greece where it is has only been recorded from four sites. 4. Hungarian meadow viper Vipera ursinii rakosiensis – formerly occupied a huge lowland range in the Pannonian steppe region, from eastern Austria (where it is now extinct), across the Great Hungarian Plain to western Romania. Now reduced to 12 sites in Hungary and one in Romania. Possibly once found in adjacent lowland steppe areas of Croatia (Slavonia) and Serbia (Vojvodina). 5. Moldavian meadow viper Vipera ursinii moldavica – a few lowland areas of eastern Romania (one site in Moldavia and three in the Danube Delta) and possibly still survives in the Republic of Moldova. Recorded from lowland areas of northeast Bulgaria, where it is now thought to be extinct. E – Meadow viper populations currently considered to be extinct ? – Continued survival of meadow viper populations unconfirmed 2.2.1. Morphology. Vipera ursinii is the smallest European viper (Arnold 2002). Adults have short, moderately slender bodies and normally attain a total length of approximately 400-450 mm, occasionally reaching 550 mm. The record length is 630 mm for a Hungarian meadow viper, Vipera ursinii rakosiensis (Street 1979), although Gruber (1989) reports that this species can reach 800 mm. Females are generally larger than males (Bruno 1985) and were found to be significantly so in Italy (Filippi and Luiselli 2003) and Hungary (Újvári et al 2000). The tail is very short compared to many other snakes and is proportionally longer in males. The body scales are strongly keeled on the dorsum, although less so on the sides. The somewhat oval, obtusely pointed head of Vipera ursinii , which is slightly narrower in males (Street 1979), is not particularly distinct from the neck and shows no evidence of a nose horn. The very small eyes have the typical vertical pupils of vipers. 2.2.2. Colouration. Vipera ursinii differs from many other vipers in that sexual dimorphism in its colouration is absent (L. Krecsák pers. com. ), or is at least much less evident (Street 1979; Shine and Madsen 1994). The grey or brownish ground colour is usually lighter dorsally and there is also a dark wavy band along the back of most individuals. This is black, brown or reddish and often has a narrow black border down either side. However, this marking does not form such a pronounced dorsal zigzag as in many other Vipera species and, in some specimens, may even be broken up into a series of elliptical or rhomboidal patches along the back. There are dark spots along the sides of the body and dark stripes extend backwards from the eyes to the side of the neck. There is usually a dark Λ , X or even H shaped marking on the back of the head, along with a few symmetrical dark patches. The pale coloured lip scales may be marked with black or brown. The underside of meadow vipers can be either pale or dark, ...