I would like to share some of the highlights of my year with you. I didn’t get out much at all, but managed to see some nice species on the few trips on which I was able to herp, in addition to some nice specimens of local Dutch herps.
The year always starts with amphibians and adders.
There is only one pond in the vicinity of Wageningen, where I study, that’s known to contain some crested newts. Their future is uncertain.
Depositing eggs
The only smooth snake I’ve seen all year came around unusually early in April.
I went to Ghent one weekend and managed to find one of the famous orange fire salamanders.
Some fighting males
Crested newts, both in situ
There’s another pond in Wageningen with a bunch of introduced amphibians. New on the list this year were some midwife toads, and I was quite surprised to be surrounded by a chorus of whistling frogs when I went to check out the pond for the first time.
The female on the right was waiting next to the calling male on the left.
On my birthday I went herping with my buddy Tim Leerschool.
Adders
Nice male sand lizard
In July I traveled around the Greek Cyclades, a chain of islands in the Aegean Sea with some nice herpetological endemics.
Scopoli’s shearwater
Milos viper
Cat snakes
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Milos water frogs
Hedgehog
Cicada on the tent
Milos wall lizard
Amorgos
Awesome green toads on Amorgos manage to hold on in the agricultural areas on an otherwise very dry island.
Amorgos is a particularly spectacular island with some nice views.
Aegean wall lizard drinking someone’s piss…
Monastery of Hozoviotissa
Kotschy gecko
Mediterranean gecko
I found a single frog on the island of Astypalaia.
The last island, Folegandros, turned out to probably be my favorite. That’s the capital down there, with only two other even smaller villages present on the island.
There is only one snake species on this island…the sand boa, one of my favorite finds. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I remain fascinated by the presence of large vipers, cat snakes, and boas which is paralleled in the Mediterranean habitat of southern California. Even Kenny can’t deny that there are cool herps in Greece.
In situ
Athens is cool, too.
Marginated tortoise from under the Acropolis
Back home after Greece, some gravid female adders were found.
Sand lizard and flowering heather
A tree frog from the coastal dunes
In August I went to Slovenia for some backpacking and herping.
Bled
Nose-horned viper, would’ve been awesome to see it after its impending shed.
Awesome…
Triglav National Park
Sound of Music, anyone? Edelweiss.
I was extremely excited about finding some alpine salamanders at approximately 2000m.
Now, those of you who managed to get this far are about to see the highlight of the year.
Let’s first get this young nose-horned viper out of the way first.
And this honorable mention for the European crayfish.
Ladies and genitalmen…
Olm (Proteus anguinus)
Thanks for looking, folks.
Matthijs
