Desert Horned Viper

• It buries itself in the sand within seconds by vibrating its whole body, until only its eyes and horns show: it can spend days like that, invisible, waiting for prey to pass overhead.
• It appears in Egyptian hieroglyphs as the consonantal sign for the letter F, one of the few animals of Ancient Egypt with a hieroglyph of its own in phonetic use.
• The horns, each formed by a modified scale above the eye, appear to shield the eyes from sand, though there are hornless populations living in exactly the same environment.

Skeleton type

Vertebrate - internal bony skeleton (reptile)

Habitat and environment

Dunes, sandy plains and wadis of the Sahara, the Sahel and the Arabian Peninsula

Sexual maturity

2 years

Gestation / incubation

60 days of incubation

Litter / clutch size

15 eggs

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Cerastes cerastes

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.