New records and search for contact zones among parapatric vipers in the genus Vipera (barani, kaznakovi, darevskii, eriwanensis), Montivipera (wagneri, raddei), and Macrovipera (lebetina) in northeastern Anatolia

Abstract

North-eastern anatolia harbours a high diversity of viperid snakes with only a limited knowledge about their distribution and with relationships among these vipers not yet fully resolved. Moreover, information on habitat attributes for most of these vipers is scarce. We initiated a multi-year project to improve our knowledge on their distribution and habitat preferences, especially by searching contact zones of closely related and ecologically similar species and evaluate potential gene ow and species integrity. in this context and as an intermittent step, we report new localities nearby putative contact zones. thus, herein we present new information on the distribution of Vipera barani, V. kaznakovi, V. darevskii, V. eriwanensis, Montivipera wagneri, M. raddei and Macrovipera lebetina based on our eld work and third sources provided to us. With these data, we were able to reduce the distribution gaps between three pairs of “parapatric”, related or ecologically similar, viper species (genus Vipera) by mostly 50%, and detected a putative contact zone in a fourth species pair (genus Montivipera). all putative contact zones are discussed in an ecological context. in addition, we add new sites of M. lebetina in the Province artvin and discuss its northern limit in turkey