Zamenis longissimus in Czech Republic

[Mario Schweiger]

Hi,

the weekend from Friday, Feb. 18th till Sunday, Feb. 20th, I spent in Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) at the "Teraristik konferenz" of KKT.
Sunday noon I´ve been at the place of the northernmost population of Zamenis longissimus in Europe, approx. 25 kms northeast of Karlovy Vary.

The guys from Zamenis o.s. have an eye on these populations.

zamenis o.s.jpg (83.72 KiB) Viewed 3315 times

One of them is Stanislav Hakl, here at one of the built hibernation /egg depostiting places.

Stanislav Hakl

info sign at the hibernation place

These places have 3 compartments each, and each of these compartments are filled up every spring by a mixture of dead wood, dry leafes and grass with different percentage of stuff in each compartment, to find out the best mixture for egg incubation and hibernation.
Since they do this, the populations are growing and very stable now.

Mario

[Ilian Velikov]

Always nice to see that people are doing nice stuff about animals! Thanks Mario for sharing and I wish all the best to this program!

[Jimmy Lundqvist]

Very interesting, I like the hibernation/egg deposit they have built.
What is the most northern known location of longissimus in Europe? How far up in Germany are they existing for example?

A bit off topic, but I have read somewhere about Danish caught longissimus in the mid 1800´s, where they introduced or native?

Would love to know more about Z longissimus, its a very cool snake!

[Kristian Munkholm]

A bit off topic, but I have read somewhere about Danish caught longissimus in the mid 1800´s, where they introduced or native?

There was a small Danish relict, i.e. native, population the latest documented specimen of which was found in 1863. Since then a few scattered reports that while unsubstantiated don't seem entirely implausible are known up to about 1910.

[Jan Grathwohl]

A search for this species in Denmark was initiated a few years ago in a suitable location, based on possible sightings, but the location is small, and no real documentation exict on sightings - the search has given no results so far - and probably will not - as the localities suitable for this species in Denmark are to small to hold a genetically viable population.

[Kristian Munkholm]

A search for this species in Denmark was initiated a few years ago in a suitable location, based on possible sightings

... I'd prefer the term "rumoured sightings" over "possible sightings"

[Mario Schweiger]

This place, in the Ohre river valley, shown on the pics is the most northern distribution (1 of 3 places around there) in Europe!
For the other isolated populations of longissimus, extinct and still occuring, see:
MUSILOVA, R., V. ZAVADIL & Petr KOTLIK (2007): Isolated populations of Zamenis longissimus (Reptilia: Squamata) above the northern limit of the continuous range in Europe: origin and conservation status.- Acta Soc. Zool. Bohem. 71: 197–208 = PDF-2199 in DB.
I´ve been invited to have a look there in late spring/summer.
After, I will some more pics here

Mario

[Francesco Tri]

A very interesting initiative: thank you, Mario!