Vipera aspis francisciredi
subspecies of reptile
Common names: Central Italian asp.
Vipera aspis francisciredi is a venomous subspecies of the European asp endemic to northern and central Italy and adjacent Croatia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.
Etymology
The subspecific name, francisciredi, is in honor of Francesco Redi, an Italian physician who was a pioneer in experimental toxinology.
Description
The head is distinctly swollen behind the eyes and upper lips; in adults, this feature is clearly visible when viewed from above.
Regarding the color pattern, many examples of this subspecies have a white or cream-colored spot near the outer edge of each ventral scale; these spots are smaller in V. a. aspis (if at all present), but much more apparent in V. a. francisciredi.
Geographic range
Street (1979) describes this subspecies as inhabiting most of Italy, where it is the most common and widely distributed venomous snake. It also occurs in the Swiss canton of Ticino, south of the Monte Ceneri Pass, but is not found west of nearby Lake Maggiore. Also in the north, in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, it can be found as far north as Meran, but is not found in Austria, and as far east as Gorizia (on the border with Slovenia).
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as subspecies of reptile. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5480990. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vipera aspis francisciredi” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.