PHYLOGENY OF THE VIPERS OF THE CAUCASUS (REPTILIA, VIPERIDAE)

Phylogenetic relationships for five taxa of Palearctic vipers (genus V ipera) from the Caucasian region were revealed by cladistic analyses o f separate and combined morphological and biochemical characters. The different data sets yielded largely congruent cladograms. Vipera berus from Sweden was included as an ingroup and V. aspis was used for outg roup comparison. For V. kaznakovi and V. dinniki, three and four diffe rent sub-populations, respectively, were treated as independent termin al taxa in the analyses. The most parsimonious cladograms confirmed th e systematic positions of these populations, discussed in a recent stu dy, and support the hypothesis that the montane populations of the wes tern main Caucasus comprise one polymorphic species: V. dinniki. Analy ses of combined biochemical and morphological data generated two equal ly parsimonious cladograms (for all ingroups compared), but yielded on ly one fully resolved topology when ingroups were condensed to the spe cies level: (berus ((renardi ('ursinii'-eriwanensis)))(dinniki-kaznako vi)).