This
comes up in questions and conversation all the time and frankly there isn’t much point asking your neighbour,
in fact mentioning snakes isn’t a good idea unless you want to run the risk of
being treated to a diatribe on how they should all be killed.
There
is a lot of confusion caused for English language speakers by the translations
of French to English for snake “prefixes” resulting from historical errors that
have never been corrected since the first dictionaries which have been copied
ever since. These are the common or vernacular names in normal usage although
again it’s unlikely that most French people know them.
Couleuvre is often thought to mean
“Grass snake” but in fact it is used for a group of snakes in France, 6 in all,
that reproduce by laying eggs, and are all but one harmless and non venomous.
The
snakes are.
Couleuvre à collier – Grass snake
Couleuvre à échelons – Ladder snake
Couleuvre d'Esculape – Aesculapian snake
Couleuvre verte et jaune – Western whip snake
Couleuvre vipérine – Viperine snake
Couleuvre
de Montpellier – Montpeiier snake, (venomous but with non retractable rear
facing fangs at the rear of its mouth - generally harmless).
Coronelle, which won’t often be
heard, is used for 2 species of snake in France that are harmless and non venomous, one, the Southern Smooth snake lays eggs and the other, the Smooth snake is “live bearing”, that is to say
although not giving live birth in the standard sense it is when the babies
hatch inside the mother and are then released to the outside world and can
immediately fend for themselves.
The
snakes are.
Coronelle
de Bordeaux - Southern smooth snake
Coronelle
lisse – Smooth snake
Vipère which are the true
vipers, they are venomous, potentially harmful and have retractable forward facing fangs and are
also “live bearing”.
The
snakes are.
Vipère
aspic – Asp viper
Vipère péliade – Common Adder
Vipère d'Orsini - Orsini's viper
Vipère de Seoane (Vipère des Pyrénées) - Seoane's Viper
Chris