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No animals fascinate like snakes.
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Terrifying to some,
exquisite to others.
Elegant and endangered.
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Born to hunt,
yet so vulnerable.
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Late winter.
The snow has grown damp and heavy.
Most of the animals have survived the cold months
quite well.
Soon the white ermine will chance its color to brown.
South facing slopes are already nearly bare.
Those who succumbed to the cold and snow slowly appear.
Insects, for example.
The snow also reveals other fragile forms.
A snakeskin discarded last autumn,
but where is the snake itself?
Where did it disappear to
when snow and ice covered the Earth?
Snakes spend the winter
in frost free cavities in the ground.
Their body energy is reduced to a minimum.
In this brumation they can just keep alive.
The power of the spring sun changes everything.
Until the snakes drowsily abandon their refuge.
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Its first winter over a young Aesculapian snake
directs its attention to the spring butterflies.
They don't count as prey,
but they're the first lifeforms its seen in six months.
And soon there's much more to see.
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More and more snakes also appear
with the rising temperatures to sun bathe.
The harmless grass snake is the most common snake in Europe.
It's recognized by the two yellow markings
on the back of its head.
After its winter rest it's not just looking for warmth.
Sometimes spring see the phenomenon of mass mating
when 50 or more gather.
They'll spend the rest of the year alone.
Spring is also the time to encounter the slough worm.
It looks like a snake,
but only at first glance.
It has eyelids and that makes it a lizard.
Snake eyes by contrast are lidless
and covered by a transparent scale,
that's what gives them the snake like stare.
So if it blinks it's not a snake,
a subtle but important difference.
Even today there's a great deal of ignorance about snakes.
They're permanently darting tongues
are not a sign of aggression.
It's their way of smelling.
Odor molecules are drawn from the air
and evaluated by a special organ in the roof of the mouth.
Their darting tongues lead them to their prey.
It even works underwater.
(splashing)
The growing intensity of the spring sun
quickly warms the upper levels of the lake.
The swimming season has started for the grass snake.
A grass snake can grow to nearly two meters.
Moving with extreme elegance in the liquid element.
The search for amphibian prey
may mean swimming hundreds of meters.
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No shortage of frogs and toads
in the tangled vegetation along the shore.
Toads are perfect sized prey,
but this one has a bright signal color.
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Toads and grass snakes don't exactly live in harmony.
But the snake is indecisive.
It may look like the toad is giving up,
but in fact it's displaying its warning colors.
To the grass snake that means I'm inedible, move on.
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And when the snake is out of range
the toad takes off too.
Another predator is in and out of the water.
A European otter.
It eats fish, crabs, muscles, amphibians and snakes.
Otters are superb divers.
A gently gliding grass snake has no chance.
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The snake has no defense.
The scent gland meant to frighten off smaller attackers
only seems to make the otter's meal more tasty.
It devours it whole.
Every little piece.
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Snakes have conquered nearly ever habitat in Europe.
One climbs to great heights.
Spotted in tree tops at 20 meters or more.
The Aesculapian snake.
It's not poisonous, and a true survival specialist.
Its greatest skill is climbing trees.
As if gravity didn't exist it glides higher
and higher in a vertical line
by jamming the edge of its belly scales
into any irregularity,
and snaking its way continuously up the trunk.
At dizzying heights
it seeks out an undisturbed place in the sun.
The norther most habitat of the Aesculapian snake
takes in southern Germany, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia and Austria.
At over two meters, it's one of the largest snakes in Europe
and it's harmless to humans.
About 2,000 years ago the species was given a boost
by the Roman city of Carnuntum near Vienna.
When more Aesculapian snakes were brought
from the Mediterranean and released in Carnuntum
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The snake was welcomed for religious reasons.
It was dedicated to the Roman god Aesculapius
and was itself considered divine.
Even today it symbolizes the healing arts
for physicians and pharmacists.
But the Romans didn't just bring the Aesculapian to Austria,
they also brought domestic rats,
that hadn't been known here until then.
Proximity to humans gave them refuge and plenty of food
and they multiplied rapidly.
Aesculapian snakes almost became domesticated
thanks to the permanent offering of rats.
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In Roman times the Aesculapian was highly appreciated
as a pest controller.
Some things change over time.
2,000 years later Aesculapian snakes
are still seen in gardens in Vienna and lower Austria.
These gardens are rarely full of mice or rats.
But another potential prey, birds and their young
are often found in larger numbers here
than in forests or meadows.
The Goldfinch is possible prey for an Aesculapian snake.
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But this climbing snake if drawn by a different odor trail.
A tit box.
If it's occupied that's the end of the brood.
If not it'll be a good overnight shelter.
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Where there are no nestings
an Aesculapian snake will also be satisfied
with a clutch of eggs.
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Its lower jaw is so flexible
that it can swallow the eggs whole.
Some species of snake
can be found in large numbers
at the end of the spring in piles of leaves and vegetation.
In such exposed areas they're not seeking food,
but suitable locations for their offspring.
Three central European snake species
don't give birth to live young.
They lay eggs in decomposing vegetation.
Snake eggs don't have hard shells like birds' eggs.
Their surfaces appear leathery and have indentations.
Female grass snakes lay 10 to 50 eggs.
Snakes don't brood the eggs themselves,
the heat of rotting vegetation does it for them.
Central European landscapes
reach from the lowlands to the highlands.
One species of snake has adapted to the higher climbs.
Its found in the foothills of the alps
between 1,000 to 2,000 meters.
It loves the harsh mountain climate.
A snake wreathed in myth and legend.
The Adder, or common viper.
A contemporary of the mammoth
that has survived to the present day.
The vertical pupil of the viper family
is its most distinctive feature,
and vipers are poisonous.
On the back of their head there's often a V or X shape
and a dark zigzag ribbon along its back.
The females are mostly brown to copper colored.
While the males are more of a gray color,
but even among hundreds of animals
no two share exactly the same coloring.
Their tail always ends in a short tip.
In the cool alpine climate
mating often first takes place in May.
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The smaller males besiege the females
and perform mating dances.
The whole process can take several hours.
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For centuries there have been stubborn rumors
that a highly dangerous poisonous snake
lives in remote mountain regions,
immediately recognizable for everyone.
It's black as midnight, the black common viper.
They exist, but they're neither a separate species,
nor especially dangerous.
They are completely black common vipers
that every now and then appear.
In effect the opposite of an albino,
and like every common viper,
they have an appetite for mice.
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Two hollow teeth like injecting needles
are located in the upper jaw.
They're supplied by poison glands in the head.
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The poison targets the vascular system.
The mouse dies within minutes.
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Only then will the snake claim its prey.
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Common vipers rarely grow longer
than 60 to 70 centimeters.
They can become angry if they're approached to closely
and feel threatened.
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Deer leave the mountain forests to graze in green pastures.
The preferred sunbathing area of the common viper.
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Snakes have neither an outer ear nor an eardrum
and therefor hear poorly.
Their inner ear is sensitive
to the vibrations caused by larger mammals.
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A snake's first instinct is to flee.
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But when a common viper feels crowded
and the unsuspecting deer continues to advance,
a step too far can lead to doom.
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A defense bite injects less poison than a hunting attack
but this is a young deer.
After just an hour it loses its balance,
and it crashes to the ground.
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The poison has caused internal bleeding
and damaged critical organs.
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In some cases a viper's bite can result in death.
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But no human has died from the bite of a common viper
since the 1960's.
Hedgehogs make their home in many different habitats
including those shared with common vipers.
As well as alpine uplands,
common vipers also like hilly moorland.
They've adapted to the damper climate over millennia.
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When a common viper encounters a hedgehog
the snake doesn't stand a chance.
Hedgehogs are passionate insectivores,
but they won't sniff at a poisonous snake.
Their spines are perfect protection.
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Its only a matter of time
before the exhausted common viper loses
the life or death struggle.
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The boggy cotton grass meadows
hide a doppelganger of the common viper.
The harmless smooth snake.
A closer look reveals the difference,
while common vipers have vertical pupils
a smooth snakes pupils are always round.
It may not be poisonous but it is unusual.
Smooth snakes hunt lizards and other snakes.
If it meets a common viper, the vipers life is in danger,
but this one's too big.
The smooth snake stops.
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It coils around its victim to strangle it.
The mini anaconda only lets go
when it's suffocated the lizard,
and it can drag it away.
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A summer dawn over the warmest alpine lake.
Carinthia's Worthersee.
Snake Island was named for its elongated shape,
but like its neighbor Kapuziner Island,
it's a perfect habitat for the dice snake.
It's harmless to humans and a habitat specialist.
It can swim and dive exceptionally well,
remaining underwater for an hour or more.
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Dice snakes prefer to hunt small fish.
They lurk at the bottom of the lake
and snap at passing prey.
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If the tidbit is too big to devour immediately,
the dice snake brings its prey onto land.
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This snake can be found throughout Europe
when the conditions are right.
Above all it needs unpolluted waters
like here in Worthersee.
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Or natural flowing streams with unreconstructed banks.
Like the Kamp in northern Austria.
One of the few rivers that remains unregulated.
The dice snake hides on a gravel bank
warming up between dives.
Then it returns to the flowing waters.
(water splashing)
Although the dice snake is rarely longer than one meter,
it's extremely powerful.
Once it has a grip, it won't let go of this rudd.
Like all snakes it isn't able to dismember its prey
so it devours it whole.
Thanks to its extremely flexible jaw
it can swallow relatively plump fish.
It then wrenches its mouth back into shape.
In 2009 the dice snake was named
endangered reptile of the year,
and that still applies today.
It only survives where there is clean clear water.
The dice snake had laid up to 25 eggs
in rotting vegetation near its hunting grounds.
The heat of decomposition
will hatch the clutch of eggs after 10 weeks.
The leathery shell is perforated from within.
It can take minutes or several hours
for the young snakes to struggle out of the egg shell.
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The birth process of these reptiles
hasn't changed for millions of years.
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The little snakes are perfectly developed
from the first moment and still carry their yoke sac
which they'll lose in the next two days.
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Tangles of young grass snakes are found until mid summer.
Once they make their way to the surface
each goes its own way.
Frog spawn has long since transformed into tadpoles.
In cool mountain areas they develop slowly
and can still be found in August.
The table is set for the young grass snakes.
They don't need to learn to hunt, they're born to it.
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Tadpoles are the ideal prey
for snakes that hardly longer than 10 centimeters.
The young grass snakes seem insatiable.
But when they can't find food
they may need to fast for several weeks.
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It's not unusual for several young snakes
to fish in the same pond.
There are lighter and darker versions of grass snakes,
but the behavior is the same.
Eat as much as you can.
Time for a rest after a good meal.
That applies to all snakes
because they digest slowly.
However the slow and inattentive live dangerously.
Of the large number of grass snakes
that hatch every year only a fraction survive.
Ravenous hunters are everywhere.
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A praying mantis can overwhelm young grass snakes.
The mantis will devour the reptile
right down to the last scale.
Relatively soon after birth young snakes have milky eyes.
This is not due to an illness,
but is part of a cycle that recurs throughout their lives.
In order to grow they must shed their skin
at regular intervals.
This usually happens in one piece.
The transparent eye scale is also shed,
and head first the snake peels off the parchment like skin.
It tangles itself in vegetation to create friction
and rolls off the old skin like a glove turned inside out.
The sluff remains, a thin shell of scales.
Like snakes, black storks avoid humans.
Quite unlike their white relatives,
they brood hidden deep in forests.
Freshly molted young Aesculapian snakes
live in the same habitat.
Black storks have excellent eyesight
and hunt all kinds of small creatures
in forests and meadows.
Young Aesculapian snakes look a lot like grass snakes.
The black stork isn't choosy.
Its massive bill can cope with large prey
and at one meter tall it's a dangerous predator.
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By late summer there are large numbers of young snakes.
The black stork has no problem finding them.
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Their bill has sharp edges to go with its sharp tip.
The shaking breaks the snake's vertebrae and ribs.
The stork takes its time,
making sure the snake is truly dead before it swallows.
The black stork can't endanger the Aesculapian snakes
as a species, it's much too rare for that.
Summer has passed its peak.
In the alpine foothills the signs are all there.
Plants like the corn lily, or monkshood.
The Adder now bears 15 young that haven't hatched from eggs,
but are born fully developed.
The important thing now is to spread out
and find suitable living space.
The lack of suitable habitats
means that some snakes are becoming rarer
throughout Europe.
Some are now only found in tiny areas
limited to a few square kilometers.
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One of these nature islands is Carinthia's Gail Valley
in Austria at the foot of the Dobratsch mountain.
This almost impossible area had been battered by rock falls.
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In places it looks as though a giant
has strewn boulders around like pebbles.
Hard to believe a landscape like this
could attract much animal life.
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And yet,
one of the largest and most poisonous snakes in Europe
lives in this region.
The nose horned viper,
also called the sand viper.
The scaled horn on the tip of its snout
makes it unmistakable.
It's found in the Balkans, Bulgaria and Greece
and anywhere between South Tiero and Turkey.
Like all vipers it has two poison fangs in its upper jaw.
Its bite Is more dangerous than the common vipers,
but deaths are still extremely rare.
The last one in Austria was around 70 years ago.
The poison works quickly on rats and mice.
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The nose horned viper is perfectly camouflaged
in its rocky surroundings.
But its popular name of sand viper is inaccurate.
It's never found on sand.
The dark zigzag band on its back is especially pronounced.
The male, larger than the female,
can grow to more than a meter.
Males and females are often so different in coloring
they look like different species.
The females are mostly brown to copper colored.
The males more ash to dark gray.
Dusk in this wild area of rock falls in southern Carinthia.
The giant rocks release the stored heat of the day.
Best conditions for warmth loving reptiles.
Nose horned vipers are active at twilight.
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They don't lay eggs, but instead give birth to live young.
The climate in mountain regions
would be too harsh for clutches of eggs.
Live birth is better for the survival of the species.
The young are still in their amniotic sac when they're born,
but after only a few hours they become quite lively
and already resemble the adult snakes.
Nose horned vipers can give birth
to up to 20 young per litter.
That seems a lot, but only one or two will survive to breed.
The fight for survival is tough for young snakes.
The future of this majestic species is more than uncertain.
Their tiny remaining habitats are isolated islands,
and could disappear entirely.
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From Austria's alpine regions
to the Pannonian lowlands close to Hungry.
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This region is home to very special flora and fauna,
that have adapted to the aquatic world and the swamps.
A mysterious little snake settled in the water meadows.
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It wasn't described by science until 1897.
Orsini's viper.
But hardly had it been documented
then it was threatened with extinction.
Within 80 years it was gone.
The last photos in the wild were taken 50 years ago.
The last half century
has changed the ecosystem dramatically.
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Like here at the border between Austria and Hungry.
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Orsini's vipers have gone from here.
And though the Neusiedler See-Seewinkel national park
does all it can to protect flora and fauna.
Orsini's viper has become a phantom.
But kilometers beyond the Austrian border in Hungry,
we still find the smallest
and rarest poisonous snake in Europe.
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From the tip of its snout to the end of its tail,
Orsini's viper measures no more than 35 to 50 centimeters.
It's never found in the forest,
specializing in open water meadows and grass steppes.
Orsini's viper ignores other snakes prey.
They're much too big.
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It hunts insects like crickets and grasshoppers.
The green bush cricket is relatively safe in the bushes.
Orsini's vipers don't climb trees.
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The wart biter however is definitely within range.
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Once again the insect is swallowed whole.
Sadly Orsini's vipers have disappeared
almost everywhere in Europe.
The result of persecution and habitat loss.
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Autumn in Austria, the colors change within weeks.
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The days grow shorter and temperatures drop.
A profound change for snakes that above all need warmth.
As the insects collect that last pollen and nectar
the active phase for Aesculapian snakes is ending too.
The final beautiful days of autumn.
The sun gives its all one last time,
but the power of late summer has long since waned.
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One last sun bath for an Aesculapian snake.
But the falling leaves disturb its peace.
With the evening fog the temperature sinks to zero.
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High time for snakes to find frost free quarters
or they won't survive the winter.
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Some abandoned mouse nests
will be comfortable snake villas over the winter.
Layers of autumn leaves provide perfect insulation,
no matter how cold and frosty it gets outside.
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When winter comes to Europe
all the snakes have long been at rest.
Only occasionally does any empty sluff
recall their mysterious lives.
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