Any snake expert here?

[Skybird]

I recently saw a documentary where it was said the common european adder/viper (German: Kreuzotter) has a venom 2-3 times as toxic as that of diamond rattlesnakes, and that bites by these vipers are usually being survived and are less dangerous than that of a rattlesnake only becasue the european viper has a signficantly smaller ammount of poison it could inject, than a rattlesnake has and would inject in serious biting (they can vary the ammount of venom injected, even bite with their poison fangs without spending any venom at all if they do not want to, the production takes much time and sometimes the snake just wants to intimidate an enemy, so it spends only some of its precious venom. The full dose gets injected mostly when they indeed are after prey to eat, or fight for their life).

I checked this in the internet and yes, on some German pages and in German Wikipedia they also said the same: the European viper has the far more potent venom, but only carries a much smaller ammount of it and thus injects far less venom compared to a diamond rattlesnake.

However, when I read on some English sites and on English Wikipedia, they write exactly the opposite: that the European viper's venom is significantly less potent than that of a rattlesnake, and that it takes huge ammounts of that venom (of the European addeer) to kill animals of this and that kind, or a human . According to them, their venom is less potent, and is carried in smaller quantity.

Has anyone a well founded final word on this so to solve the contradiction?

Else, it is a very fascinating snake, and the most widely spread snake on the planet, with some unique characteristics. It can flatten its body to maximise the ammount of body surface it can direct at the sun to optimize warmth absorption, and it is the only snake that even lives north of the polar circle (!!! I was stunned by that!). As a young boy I once observed two of these snakes in the Bavarian wild at close range. Thats almost half a century ago, however. I stood still, and no, I got not bitten at all.

When I think "snakes", I immediately think of either European adders, or grass snake/water snake/ringed snake (are these really three names for the same snake, or three different snakes?I mean "Ringelnatter"), to me they both are kind of protoype examples of poisonous vipers and (mostly) unpoisonous colubrids. Last year I met several grass snakes, one a very long one that even crawled about my legs while I sat absolutely still. It was a very friendly snake, I thought, and in no haste.