MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF 3 VIPERA AMMODYTES SUBSPECIES FROM LABORATORY CONDITIONS

The inheritance of the form and place of rostral and suprarostral shie lds was examined with three subspecies of European sandviper in Bulgar ia: Vipera ammodytes ammodytes, Vipera a. meridionalis, and Vipera a. montandoni. When V. a. ammodytes was reproduced in the laboratory the newborn all had subspecies traits (rostral and suprarostral shields), while in both V. a. meridionalis x V. a. meridionalis and V. a. montan doni x V. a. montandoni, the offspring were heterogenic: some snakes h ad the traits of V. a. meridionalis, others of V. a. montandoni, and t he rest were intermediary forms. The same regularity was observed with crosses of V. a. montandoni x V. a. meridionalis. Morphological trait s varied significantly and no regularity was observed in their inherit ance by offspring. Obviously, in differentiation of the European sandv iper, other characteristics have also to be examined.