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In late September two friends and I decided to go on another (last) herping trip this year. Our destination was Slovenia. Having done more research than last year, we were quite confident to find more herps this time, and we sure had success. Our main goal was to find Vipera ammodytes, also Vipera aspis francisciredi was an our wish list. After an 8 hour drive, we reached our destination at mid day. Although it was quite cold, we immidiately foud our first Z. longissimus. Also the first asp viper was spotted.


On the second day we began taking pictures, starting with a beautiful male Vipera aspis francisciredi
Vipera aspis francisciredi by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr




Later that day we got lucky with our first two Vipera ammodytes. Both were female. It was absolutely amazing to find these snakes in their natural habitat, I had always hoped to see them in the wild.
Vipera ammodytes by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
Vipera ammodytes by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr



After an exhausting third day with bad weather we decided to head back home on the fourth day. However we stopped at an unknown location on our way back for a small snack and accidentally found another Vipera ammodytes population with more individuals than we had found in the three days before . They were also sharing their habitat with Natrix tesselata and Zamenis longissimus. It was an amazing sight to say the least!
Vipera ammodytes by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
Nose horned viper by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr
Nose horned viper by Lennart Schmid, auf Flickr

Our total of found herps on this 4 day trip were:
3 Zamenis longissimus
5 Natrix tesselata
2 Vipera aspis francisciredi
11 Vipera ammodytes

Wow, that's a lot of snakes for a 4 day trip! Good job!

Nice result on the trip, especially the aspis is a good find, not all that common in Slovenia!

really nice viper shots