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Adder (snake)To many, the terms adder and "viper" are interchangeable, referring to any member of the Viperidae family. Although adder was more universally popular in the past, in the literature today it is still often used in combined names that refer to species belonging to the subfamily Viperinae (pitless vipers), especially those found in Europe and Africa. Only one species is still regularly referred to simply as "adder":
Additional recommended knowledgeHowever, one other viper, a pitviper, has sometimes been referred to by that name:
There are, of course, always exceptions to the above rule:
EtymologyThe word "adder" was nædre in Old English; in the 14th century a nadder was, like a napron, rebracketed as an adder. It appears with the generic meaning of serpent in the older forms of many Germanic languages, and is thus used in the Old English version of the Christian Scriptures for the devil, the serpent of Genesis. Cited references
* This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. See also
Categories: Viperinae by common name | Crotalinae by common name |
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Adder_(snake)". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |