{"id":668397,"date":"2026-01-02T06:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/668397\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T06:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:19:11","slug":"spain-is-home-to-11-types-of-snakes-three-of-them-venomous-vipers-but-how-dangerous-are-they","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/668397\/","title":{"rendered":"Spain is home to 11 types of snakes, three of them venomous vipers\u2014but how dangerous are they?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>THERE are 11 types of snakes in Spain, but only three of these are venomous, the last of which causes between 2,000 and 5,000 bites and one or two deaths a year.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>According to the president of the environmental association Iberozoa, Antonio Mart\u00edn Higuera, there are only three species of vipers found on the Peninsula Iberica that \u2018pose a threat to humans\u2019: the snub-nosed viper (Vipera latastei), Seoane\u2019s viper (Vipera seoanei) and the asp (Vipera aspis).<\/p>\n<p>However, these venomous vipers are only accountable for one or two deaths a year, and as pointed out by Higuera, more people die in Spain from wasp stings or dog bites.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the venomous snakes found in Spain are very small and only actually attack if touched or feel threatened in any way, otherwise their instinct is to flee.<\/p>\n<p>The other 11 non-venomous species of snakes found in Spain, can measure between 50-60 centimeters and two meters, fortunately, despite their more \u2018imposing\u2019 size, none pose a threat to humans.<\/p>\n<p>According to Mart\u00edn, though snakes in Spain are a protected species \u201cit is not necessary to call the Nature Protection Service (Seprona) of the Civil Guard or the local police everytime a snake is spotted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause it is a wild animal, like any other, as if an owl lands on the roof of a house looking for mice, it will leave the house to look for food somewhere else once finished.\u201d Mart\u00edn said.<\/p>\n<p>If in doubt, however, Seprona recommends calling 112.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Click here to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theolivepress.es\/spain-news\/category\/other-news\/environment\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Environment News<\/a> from The Olive Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THERE are 11 types of snakes in Spain, but only three of these are venomous, the last of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":668398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3847],"tags":[728,18104,8626,12658,70,203649,34722,104,18106,16,15,203650,203651,1717],"class_list":{"0":"post-668397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-news-spain","10":"tag-newspaper","11":"tag-poison","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-snake-bike","14":"tag-snakes","15":"tag-spain","16":"tag-the-olive-press","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-venomous-vipers","20":"tag-vipers","21":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115824057556074097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=668397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/668397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/668398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=668397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=668397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=668397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}