| 1 | Balkan whipsnake |
One of Greece’s most common snakes, as well as one of the fastest. Balkan whipsnakes (Hierophis gemonensis) live in every region of Greece, as well as Albania, Bosnia and Croatia. Adults are usually one metre long, with an absolute maximum length of 130cm. This species is most common in Mediterranean shrubland, rural gardens, and cultivated land such as olive plantations, where they can sometimes be found resting in olive trees themselves.
Balkan whipsnakes are non-venomous, and usually non-aggressive, but will defend themselves with vicious bites if provoked. There has never been a fully fledged study on this species’ diet, but there’s been plenty of anecdotal sightings. Fellow snakes seem high on their list, as a Balkan whipsnake was once spotted swallowing a dice snake whole in Croatia. Smooth snakes and Aesculapian snakes are also confirmed meals. This species seems to shun mammals in favour of reptiles overall.
Balkan whipsnakes are fairly easy to recognise, with dozens of black spots covering their upper body, and plainer olive tones on their lower body. They have round pupils, and smooth scales to touch. Males are larger than females. This is also a wrestling snake, as males often engage in ritual combat for the attention of females, a sight which probably terrified invading Turkish armies back in the day.
Balkan whipsnakes are most closely related to the green whipsnake (Hierophis viridiflavus), one of Italy’s most common snakes. They look and act similarly, but a 2015 genetic study found an estimated divergence time of 7 million years ago. Balkan whipsnakes only reach the extreme northeast of Italy.
| 2 | Nose-horned viper |
Easily Greece’s most common venomous snake. You won’t find the nose-horned viper (Vipera ammodytes) in your backgarden or slithering out of an Athens sewer, but they’re abundant in rock fields, craggy slopes favoured by climbers, and even beaches, such as on the Cylades islands of Los and Mykonos. This species is instantly recognisable by its horned snout, which varies in angle from horizontal to vertical, usually somewhere inbetween.
Nose-horned vipers average at 65cm, though the longest ever reached 110cm (discovered in Carinthia, Austria). A 2006 study analysed snakebites in Greece from 1995 to 2005, including 147 confirmed to be from nose-horned vipers. None were fatal, and swelling was a near universal symptom, affecting 98.64% of patients. A pounding heartbeat affected 32.65% of patients, fainting or dizziness 29.93%, fever 23.13%, nausea 16.33% and vomiting 12.93%.
Nose-horned vipers are usually grey, but there’s a sizeable gender difference, as males are especially stony-coloured, while females tend to be browner. A rounded zigzag down their spine is a classic ID sign for this species. Nose-horned vipers are also found in the wilderness surrounding Mount Olympus, and are considered to be common, not rare. In the Cyclades, they’re found on 15 islands overall, and these island dwellers are smaller than their mainland Greek counterparts.
This species eats 61-86% mammals, the remainder consisting of lizards, occasional birds, and even venomous centipedes. In Greece, they’ve been observed eating Megarian banded centipedes and snake-eyed lizards.
| 3 | Leopard snake |
A non-venomous constrictor which avoids dense forests, and prefers to inhabit olive groves, fields, and intermingling plains of bushes and rocks. Leopard snakes reach a maximum of 120cm, and cover the whole of mainland Greece, including the outskirts of Athens. Leopard snakes love old stone ruins, and in rural Greece, there’s plenty to choose from.
This species has memorable copper blotches contrasting against a grey or olive undertone. Their head has a V-shaped marking, which sometimes leads to confusion with vipers, but their pupils are round rather than viciously vertical. Leopard snakes also have vivid black stripes connected to each eye.
Most of their confirmed prey are mammals – bank voles, Etruscan shrews, Savi’s pine voles, plus an Italian wall lizard. In Peloponnese, Greece, a captured leopard snake regurgitated a slug, which is a rare meal for a snake, and especially rare in Europe. This snake lacks any venom, but may have more subtle survival skills.
Greece has been a cradle of civilisation for thousands of years, yet somehow, leopard snakes are still being discovered in new locations – in 2015, they were discovered on the island of Chalki for the first time. The tourist islands of Rhodes and Crete are also leopard snakes hotspots. Don’t let them scare you away from your holiday, as this species is incapable of harming humans.
| 4 | Grass snake |
Virtually no corner of Europe except the far north is free from the humble grass snake, and Greece is no exception. This harmless species lives in ponds, and survives by playing dead, releasing a foul snake smell, and thrashing around in the palm of your hand until you put them down out of sheer annoyance.
Grass snakes are typically 100cm, with an all-time record of 205cm from Veglia Island, Croatia, easily the most freakish grass snake ever recorded. They inhabit the vast majority of Greece, where they have a few interesting quirks.
There’s two subspecies in the country: Natrix natrix persa and Natrix natrix schweizeri. The latter is concentrated on the islands of Milos, Kimolos and Polyaegos and has a unique pattern of dense black squares contrasting against an olive undertone. This has made them popular in captivity, and they’re also less aquatic than traditional grass snakes. N. natrix schweizeri is one of the most distinctive subspecies, alongside the bluish grass snakes (N. natrix cetti) of Sardinia in Italy.
Meanwhile, Natrix natrix persa lives on the Greek mainland, and has thinner and more numerous, yet equally black spots covering its flanks. This subspecies starts in Greece and extends to Turkmenistan.
In 2018, grass snakes were discovered on a new Greek island: Karpathos. On the mainland, you can expect to find grass snakes in ponds, small streams and damp meadows.
| 5 | European catsnake |
A mildly venomous snake with a record length of 130cm, which secretes toxins through its rear fangs only, and struggle to inject them into humans. This is the only venomous snake on the island of Crete, but not one you need to be slightly concerned about.
European catsnakes (Telescopus fallax) inhabit virtually all of Greece, including the outskirts of Athens. They inhabit Albania and Macedonia to the northwest, and Turkey to the east, meaning that Greece lies virtually at the centre of their range.
European catsnakes hunt at night, and produce a strange whistling sound when cornered. They figure in religious ceremonies, as supposedly, when the nuns were under attack by Turkish soldiers long ago, they prayed to God, who delivered a sudden influx of catsnakes which terrified the Turks into fleeing. Annual ceremonies on the island of Cephalonia still honour this snake.
European catsnakes have occupied the reptile-eating niche, and prefer to inhabit rocky hillside slopes and open oak forests. With their olive and grey blotches, Telescopus fallax can look extremely similar to vipers from a distance. Both have sharp vertical pupils – hence the catsnake name. But with nose-horned vipers, the dark blotches run down their spine in a continuous unbroken stream, like a zigzag with circular edges. In European catsnakes they’re broken up, and sometimes arranged in alternating light and dark squares. The image above is a great example of these broken blotches.
| 6 | Milos viper |
An endangered viper, which is found solely on the Cyclades islands off Greece’s south coast. The Milos viper belongs to the Macrovipera genus, which has up to 5 members. This was originally a subspecies of the Levantine viper (Macrovipera lebetinus) found in Turkey, but the Cyclades islands have been isolated from the Greek mainland for 12 million years, and hence, this Greek version was split off by scientists into a full species.
The Milos viper reaches a maximum of 98.5cm, and is the subject of bizarre rumours of jumping 5 metres at once. They’re more common in rural areas, particularly small valleys with streams that dry out during summer. They like scattered tree clumps, as they’re relatively arboreal (tree-climbing) for a viper. Much of their diet consists of birds, and Milos vipers often lurk on branches in order to snatch them out of mid-air.
Milos vipers are also common on old stone walls adjacent to fields. Of course, if you stick to the Greek mainland, you’ll never have a chance of meeting one. Milos vipers are also found on the islands of Kimolos, Polyegos and Sifnos nearby, but not Antimilos.
In humans, Milos viper venom mainly causes local symptoms such as swelling and haemorrhaging. It contains procoagulants which simulate factor X, the blood clotting conversion mediator, depleting important fibrinogen supplies, although it does so less strongly than its mainland Macrovipera cousins.
| 7 | Dahl’s whipsnake |
Another species which covers virtually all of Greece, as well as Albania to the west and Turkey to the east. Dahl’s whipsnakes are fast and thin, and regularly reach 120cm, with an all-time record of 152cm. Rather than an ambush predator, this is an actively foraging snake with an abundance of energy. Dry, open habitats with plenty of stones are their favourite, such as hilly steppe or areas in villages near sheep fields.
Their adventurous ways often bring them to their roads, where they meet their demise under the screeching tyres of cars. With nose-horned vipers focussing on mammals, Dahl’s whipsnakes have seized the lizard niche, and are sometimes eaten themselves by eastern montpellier snakes.
The signature ID sign of this species is patterns which completely vanish on the lower two thirds of the body. The upper third has striking black blotches or stripes, contrasting against a grey or olive undertone. The lower body is completely plain, with neither stripes nor bands, and the underlying colour switches to orange. Meanwhile, their eyes have round pupils and a reddish iris.
The longest Dahl’s whipsnake of all time originally measured 152cm, discovered in Bulgaria. On September 25th 2012, this was roundly defeated, with a new record of 172cm, recorded in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia, near an industrialised nitrogen fertilizer plant.
| 8 | Eurasian worm snake |
A harmless Greek snake which is found all over the country, but successfully lurks out of sight. This is Greece’s most common blind snake species – the Eurasian worm snake (Xerotyphlops vermicularis), a tiny snake measuring just 16-25cm, with an all-time maximum of 47cm. Its tail is particularly short, comprising just 2-4% of the body. This is a fossorial snake with shriveled eyes, which are capable only of perceiving basic changes in overall light intensity. Greece lies in the western area of their empire, as their other territories include Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Eurasian worms snakes are most common on hillsides, sparse grassy fields, and areas covered with rocks and shrubs, usually at lower elevations. They can’t cope with sand, as they require soils to dig into, but they sometimes appear in semi-arid areas, as well as the edges of agricultural fields. This species often lurks under stones, and in underground tunnels such as insect burrow networks.
Eurasian worm snakes derive a large chunk of their calories from ants, and have a transparent belly, which allows scientists to analyse their meals without even dissecting them. This species lays barely any eggs, just 1-3 per batch, which have an elongated shape. Hiding is their main survival strategy, not all-out attack.
| 9 | Greek viper |
This rare viper has less than a tenth of the nose-horned viper’s overall territory. Greek vipers inhabit a small stretch of western Greece, just crossing the border with Albania. The status of this viper is murky, as it’s either an independent species called Vipera graciae, or a subspecies of the meadow viper (Vipera ursinii) which is scattered across Europe.
Either way, this is a 30-45cm species of open grassy meadows, usually with plenty of rock and shrub cover. The Greek viper lives in high altitude areas which are typically covered with melting snow during winter, specifically the Pindus mountain range of Greece’s west, which reaches a maximum elevation of 2,637 metres on Mount Smolikas.
A 2016 study scoured these mountains and discovered 78 Greek vipers, all of which were found on alpine meadows above 1600 metres in elevation. They found them on several new mountains, including Griba, Shendelli, Llofiz, Tomorr, Dhëmbel and Trebeshinë mountains. The species was particularly common near shrubs or jumped piles of rocks on south-facing slopes.
Consequently, it’s mainly weekend hikers who are likely to bump into this venomous serpent. 97% of their prey comes from the Orthoptera order of insects (grasshoppers, crickets, locusts), including species such as wing-buzzing grasshoppers and wart-biters.
Meanwhile, the final of the 3 Vipera members in Greece is the mighty adder (Vipera berus). However, this is pretty much a non-factor, as it only inhabits the far north of Greece, just spilling over the borders of Albania and Bulgaria.
| 10 | Eastern montpellier snake |
One of Greece’s longest snakes, with most adults exceeding 100cm and a record length of 200cm. The eastern montpellier snake (Malpolon insignitus) is mildly venomous, though incapable of killing, and generally has indistinct patterns. They have flexible habitats, appear in open rural meadows and Mediterranean shrubland, but also towns. They have a taste for other snakes, with dice snakes and Dahl’s whipsnakes both confirmed in their diets. A confirmed lizard prey is the ocellated bronze skink.
Montpellier snakes are one of Greece’s most agile. They move during day, and have strong powers to swim and climb alike, dashing up old stone walls without even thinking. Their territory begins in the extreme northeast of Italy, covers the whole Balkan area including Greece, before continuing through Turkey and the middle east.
Specifically, the version found in Greece is the eastern montpellier snake. The western montpellier snake (Malpolon monspessulanus) ranges from northwest Italy, through Spain and Portugal, to northwest Africa.
Originally, the two species were considered as one, but genetic testing revealed a divergence date of 3.5-6 million years ago. Eastern montpellier snakes are slightly paler than their cousin, and their record lengths are lower. The western version peaked at 216.2cm, while the record for Malpolon insignitus is 200cm from Jordan, followed by 183cm in Egypt. The records in Bulgaria are 167cm and 156.8cm, so it’s likely that those in Greece also reach slightly smaller maximum lengths.