Puff Adder
Related Category: Vertebrate Zoology
see viper.
More on Puff Adder
Viper - any of a large number of heavy-bodied, poisonous snakes of the family Viperidae, characterized by erectile, hypodermic fangs.
Puff Adder
African Reptiles guide Information: This thick, heavily built snake has a large, flattened, triangular head and large nostrils which point vertically upwards.
Raptors, puff adders, and humans (habitat destruction).
Habitat
Woodlands, wooded savanna; Africa.
Description: Sometimes called "puff adders," eastern hognose snakes are thick-bodied snakes that reach about 46 in (115 cm) long. These snakes are easily distinguished by their upturned snouts, but they are variable in color.
Some people believe that hognose snakes (Heterodon platirhinos; also called spreading adders or puff adders) are able to mix poison with their breath and kill a person at a distance of over twenty feet.
The viper is one of the largest species of the puff adder family of snakes. Gaboon vipers have a unique pattern of colors that range from shades of brown to pinks and purples.
There are three different species of puff adders, this snake is one of them. When excited this snake has the capability to enlarge its size by inflating its body. Sometimes it can double its apparant size when displaying this behaviour.
This behavior has given this snake several other common names: Puff Adder, Spreading Adder, Blow Viper. Occasionally an individual will strike, but typically with its mouth closed.
Miscellaneous: When threatened, hognose snakes hiss loudly and spread their necks like cobras do, resulting in the nicknames “puff adder' or “spreading adder.' They rarely bite during these displays, but they may strike repeatedly.
These antics have earned the hognose such names as puff adder, blow snake, and hissing viper. If this first phase of the act fails to frighten off the intruder, the hognose resorts to "playing possum.
This species goes by numerous common names. Some of these include Blowing Adder, Death Adder, False Cobra, Hissing Adder, Opossum Snake, Puff Adder, Sand Viper, Spreadhead, Spreading Adder, or some variation thereof.
Habitats ...
(This has led to local names like "puff adder" or "hissing viper.") If this act is unsuccessful, they will writhe about, excrete a foul smelling musk, and then turn over with mouth agape and lie still, as though dead.
Adult can usually recover from the effects of its bite. In Africa are found the related puff and night adder. The names puff adder and spreading adder are sometimes applied to the harmless hog-nosed snake of North America .
eating a wide variety of items including wildebeest, zebra, Thompson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, topi, kongoni, waterbuck, eland, Cape buffalo, impala, Warthog, hare, springhare, ostrich eggs, bat-eared fox, golden jackal, porcupine, puff adder, ...
The southern hognose snake and its more common relative, the eastern hognose snake, are often called puff adder or spreading adder. When threatened, a hognose snake will raise its head, flatten its neck and hiss loudly.
The most common snake of the Pinelands may be the Northern Water Snake. Surely the most bizarre snake of the area is the Eastern Hognose, also known as the Puff Adder, since it often spreads its neck, cobra-like, when alarmed.
Hognose snakes are also sometimes erroneously referred to as "spreading adders," which is most definitely not a good common name. The true adders, such as the Puff Adder from Africa and the Death Adder from Australia, ...
 See also: Snake, Adder, Viper, Reptile, Cobra
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