ABSTRACT
The above quotation ("Cerastes as vipers in general give birth to living young like the Salamander") is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, written evidence that a urodele (Salamandra) is viviparous. Belon (l.c.) obviously assumed knowledge of viviparity in Salamandra. Viviparity of vipers was described already in the fourth century B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle (Peck 1970).
