[7] The diet of M. xanthina is thought to consist of rodents and other small mammals and native birds.

[8] Extreme northeastern Greece, the Greek islands of Simi, Skiathos, Kos, Kalimnos, Samothraki, Leros, Lipsos, Patmos, Samos, Chios and Lesbos, European Turkey, the western half of Anatolia (inland eastward to Kayseri), and islands (e.g. Chalki) of the Turkish mainland shelf.

Nilson and Andrén (1986) restricted the species to "Xanthos" [= Xanthus] (Kınık) province Mugla, S. W. Turkish Anatolia" through lectotype designation.

This can be more common in young children or older individuals that get a case of severe envenomation (especially if fangs inject venom directly into a vein, for instance).

[10] Similarly, Iranian herpetologist Mahmoud Latifi found the lethality (LD50) of the crude venom from the species Montivipera xanthina to be 0.42 mg/kg in a 1984 study,[11] and 0.35 mg/kg in a 1985 study, which Latifi conducted for the Department of the Environment in Iran (was translated to English in 1991).

For most adult male humans of 70 kg (150 lb), the estimated lethal dose is thought to be between 40–50 mg.[12] In his 1984 study, Latifi found the average venom yield to be 10 mg (dry weight of milked venom).