“…Although the analysis of a single specimen is not representative, the study nevertheless showed a similar trend to our observations, with the venom from the melanistic snake yielding more intense bands corresponding to larger toxins. However, the venom composition of V. berus berus specimens from Russia (Al-Shekhadat et al, 2019; Latinovićet al, 2016) and the Slovakian Republic (Bocian et al, 2016), as well as one V. berus barani specimen from Türkiye (Damm et al, 2024), revealed remarkable quantitative diversity for PLA 2 (10% (Latinovićet al, 2016), 17.9% (Damm et al, 2024), 25.3 % (Al-Shekhadat et al, 2019), 59% (Bocian et al, 2016)), as well as svMP (0.2% (Damm et al, 2024), 3.15% (Bocian et al, 2016), 17.2% (Al-Shekhadat et al, 2019), 19% (Latinovićet al, 2016)) and svSP (15% (Bocian et al, 2016), 16.2% (Al-Shekhadat et al, 2019), 31% (Latinovićet al, 2016), 46.1% (Damm et al, 2024)). In relation to this extreme compositional variation across the sampling sites in previous studies, the venom variation we observed by SDS-PAGE and RP-HPLC was marginal and only affected the abundance of certain fractions rather than their overall diversity.…”